Photo courtesy of Steven Johnson.
Ethan Melevensky, Ben Cusmariu, Andy Sheng and Anjie Deng stand with their coach Steven Johnson after winning first place in the advanced division of the 2025 Alabama Economics Challenge.
Economics students at Vestavia Hills High School have been on a winning streak, capturing three straight state championships in economics and personal finance competitions.
The top 20 high school economics teams in the state competed in the Alabama Economics Challenge state championship in April at the Federal Reserve Bank branch in Birmingham. There were two divisions, one for students in general economics classes and another for students in advanced classes. Teams from Vestavia Hills captured first and second place in both divisions, said Wanda McAbee, executive director for the Alabama Council on Economic Education.
Vestavia’s two first-place teams also in an online test in late April qualified for the national finals in Atlanta on May 28-30.
Students on the first-place teams were Ethan Melevensky, Ben Cusmariu, Andy Sheng and Anjie Deng in the advanced division, and Alan Sheng, Adam Zhao, Dev Patel and Connor Moorhouse in the general economics division.
Students on the second-place teams were Terence Li, Cuewon Kim, Sriram Birur and Parker Liu in the advanced division and Jack Hugunine, Arhaan Lalani, Pratel Danasekar and Krish Chintareddy in the general economics division.
In the state competition for the National Personal Finance Challenge, the state championship team from Vestavia was comprised of seniors Andy Sheng, Cusmariu, Deng and Melenevsky. The second-place team was comprised of Jeffrey Zhao, Aditya Sheelavant, Justin Zou and Eric Wang. Jeffrey Zhao also was named the competition’s top individual scorer.
The first-place team is slated to compete in a national competition in Atlanta on June 1-2. All the teams are coached by Steven Johnson.
