 |
||||||||
 |
||||||||
|
||||||||
|
Mind games
By JOEL POILEY HUNTER'S GREEN -- On Broadway or in Odyssey of the Mind, the show must go on, even when a cast member is under the weather. So when Benito Middle School student Jennie Buccino came down with laryngitis and a 103 fever the day before Saturday's competition at the University of South Florida, there were worried faces on the children who had practiced skits for countless hours in their living rooms and garages. But Buccino performed anyway, with background voice help from her teammates, and the team of seventh-graders finished second among the six schools in its division. Odyssey of the Mind is an international competition for elementary, middle and high school students. A New Jersey professor, Sam Micklus, created the problem solving competition 30 years ago. Students are graded by judges on their thinking abilities and teamwork in categories ranging from literature and art to technical performance, where teams make innovative contraptions and incorporate artistic elements into their solutions. "I have so much fun doing this," said Buccino, a participant for five years who takes drama classes at Benito. "I have to keep from laughing sometimes because we're having so much fun. She and her teammates -- Charlie Knuckles, Hayley Dunne, Kacy Grady, Ben Weber and Priya Modi -- performed a musical version of Rip Van Winkle, the Washington Irving classic from 1819 about a man that awakens after a 20-year sleep to find everything changed. They modernized the skit into a Western-themed musical, with a bit of Frankenstein's Bride thrown in for humorous effect. "We all knew the Rip Van Winkle story very well and came up with a bunch of ideas we thought it would be cute to use. We came up with Frankenstein because all of us liked the play and the bride reference worked well," Buccino said. Teams were also judged in a spontaneous competition, where they were given a problem to solve on the spot. "The kids really performed well," said Dana Wyatt, a Benito teacher who prepared the team for its spontaneous competition. "If you didn't know, you couldn't tell Jennie couldn't sing. One of the girls sang one of Jennie's lines while she lip-synched." First place and a trip to the state competition at the University of Central Florida went to a mixed team of sixth and seventh graders representing Orange Grove Middle School. That team's skit was based on the fable, "The Crow and the Pitcher." Although representing Orange Grove, the team drew from several New Tampa schools as well. Its members were: Matt Dickinson, a seventh-grader at Benito; Michael Hollowell, a sixth-grader at Orange Grove; Megan Oliveri, a sixth-grader at Chiles Elementary; Katie Park, a sixth-grader at Chiles; Ryan Schurr, a sixth-grader at Chiles; Cameron Sokolik, a sixth-grader at Orange Grove and Joey Walters, a seventh-grader at Benito. The competition in Orlando will take place on April 13, and the winners continue to Colorado in June.
 © 2006 • All Rights Reserved • Tampa Bay Times
490 First Avenue South • St. Petersburg, FL 33701 • 727-893-8111 
|
From the Times |
