AACS National Competition

Well, here is the group that I took to the AACS national competition at Bob Jones last week. What a wonderful experience it was for all of these students. We competed in choric speaking, religious reading and duet acting. All of the performers did well and handled the pressure of this level of competition like the pros. Going to nationals always reminds me of my high school experiences there -- it was always the highlight of my year.

After the first round of speech competition on Wednesday we were thrilled to see our choric speaking group had made it to the final round which was the top 6. How exciting it was to see the group "nail" their performance the next day. We knew we were up against stiff competition, so I told the group that the outcome didn't matter. They had done their best and had made it into the final round which we had never done before in this competition category.

During the final awards program we were even more elated when the final three teams were announced, and we came in third place. Killian Hill from Georgia was first and Gloucester Christian from New Jersey was second. Killian Hill, where my good friend is the speech teacher, performed at the program. They did "The Pied Piper of Hamlin" and were outstanding. Anyway, I took a picture of the screen where our name was listed even though it is difficult to see -- it is there!

Here is the group celebrating in the snack shop after our final round. They were all smiles and were definitely in the mood for a snack before heading to chapel.

These two pictures are actually from the awards program at our state competition in which the group performed. Our choric speaking group had 13 students and we did a cutting from "Chitty-chitty, Bang-bang." They chanted the tune, spoke, sang, acted, clapped. . .just about anything you can imagine. I did have a dad record our performance, so I'll try to figure out how to post it. Anyway, it was really neat!

Here is the beginning where Jeremy, Jemima, Professor and Grandpa are interacting at breakfast. Our favorite line is Grandpa's:

"I got up this morning. . . and shot an elephant in my pajamas. . . how an elephant got in my pajamas . . . I shall never know !!!" :) Have a good day!

Friends, Friends and More Friends

Things have continued to be very busy. We enjoyed spring break and our days of rest the week before Easter immensely. Easter was a special day (see our new "couple" pic on the left wearing our Easter outfits). We had dinner with the Walkers and had our annual Easter egg hunt. Fun times. Later that afternoon Chris Fisher, my MBBC dorm supervisor buddy, came for a visit. I haven't seen Chris since I moved to Tennessee, so it sure was a treat. She spent the night with us and then headed to Murfreesboro to stay with Kim and Tim Henderson.


After spring break and Easter celebrations were over it was back to school/work for one day and then Brian and I both headed to Greenville, SC for the AACS national competition. What a blast we had. I was the sponsor for the speech students competing from our school. We took 13 students. I will post pictures and tell of the results another day.

When we arrived on campus and were standing in line to register, I looked over and recognized Mrs. Dee Thelen who is Tammy Weniger's (my high school friend and college roommate) mother. I hadn't seen Mrs. Thelen since I left Watertown. We were both sponsors for our schools and were staying in the dorm. When we began comparing room numbers we realized we were in the same room! What a coincidence! Of all of the hundreds of dorm rooms on BJ campus and we ended up together. Needless to say, we had so much fun laughing and catching up on old times. Our college roommates were wonderful . . . well, except when they made us kneel on the floor at devotions time and told us we had to recite the BJ creed. We were the talk of the hall after we "fell" for that one!


Here is my nationals "roomie." She was even excited that we were both wearing cardigans!


My next big surprise was when I looked through the competition list and saw many competitors from Maranatha Academy listed. Alysha Morris's name caught my eye because she is Angela and Dwayne Morris's daughter. I ran into Pam Logans and she informed me that Angela was on her way to Greenville. Imagine our shrieks of delight when we ran into each other in one of the speech competition rooms. I "hung out" with Angela for the rest of the day on Wednesday and was able to hear Alysha and the Logan's son sing a duet. It was beautiful.

My final highlight (oh, besides having lunch with the Joneses -- literally:) was to have lunch with three more of my very dear friends from Northland days. Here we are pictured from left to right -- Kristy, Amy Lyda Roland, Kim Gahman Daulton, Lisa Masters Zydowicz. We were sad that Kristen Jones Golson was not able to join because then our "Old Ladies' Society" would have been complete. That is what we used to call ourselves when we would play pranks and take funny pictures while working at Northland as summer staff in the early '90s. There is much more to tell, but at least this was a start. I know my mom will be happy to see new pictures -- she checks my blog faithfully every day!:)