Gotnospacesinourname, a five-member Destination Imagination team from the Newberg area, is headed to the global finals of the problem-solving competition after placing first at the state meet April 6 at Crescent Valley High School.
The team will be among 1,200 teams from 45 states, seven Canadian provinces and 13 countries to compete May 22-25 at the University of Tennessee.
Moutain View Middle School students Chandler Everett, Jordan Johns and Cassie Matteson, along with home-school student Anna Millage and Jenner Vanden Hoek of Sherwood, also combined to win the Da Vinci Award, the highest awarded in Destination Imagination.
At the beginning of the season in September, the team was presented with six main challenges from which to choose: technical, scientific, fine arts, improvisational, structural or Project Outreach, which is community-service based.
Playing to its strengths, Gotnospacesinourname opted for the fine arts challenge “In Disguise,” which involves writing a play that incorporates masks and disguises. One of the masks must be decorative, while another must change its appearance in front of the audience.
The team, which gathers as an extracurricular group with no official connection to Mountain View, wrote and performed an anti-bullying script, impressing the judges in the process.
“They thought it was daring for middle school students to take on that topic,” parent and team manager Ronald Johns said.
Since qualifying, the team has been refining its act and scrambling to raise the funds to travel across the country.
In addition to doing some “internal” fundraising among family, the group will host a car wash at the Tire Factory, 2305 Portland Road, from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturday. A garage sale will also be held May 3-4 at 1218 Hillsdale Drive.
“It’s a good thing for students to get involved in,” Johns said. “You need a manager, but the team does everything on its own. They wrote the script, they did the staging, built the backdrops and all that.”
For more information on the team or fundraising events, email Johns at crron18@gmail.com.
By: Seth Gordon, Newberg Graphic
