Press Releases

For Immediate Release: February 24, 2010. Contact: Sheila Adams, (936)632-1720

Students from St. Cyprian’s School participated in the Destination Imagination Competition

Students from St. Cyprian’s School participated in the Destination Imagination Competition held in Mesquite, Texas last weekend. Destination Imagination is an organization that provides educational programs for students to learn and experience creativity, teamwork and problem solving. Students work in teams to solve challenges and present their solutions at tournaments. Six groups of students from St. Cyprian’s participated this year with five groups receiving medals and one of those advancing to state. The students will demonstrate their challenges in front of the school on Friday, March 5th at 1 p.m. in the gym.
Placing first in the region was the fifth grade team called the “Braininators”: Skyler Hunter, Garrett Coleman, Caleb Harris, McKenzie Ford and Mattie Wesoloski. The team received the coveted Renaissance Award that is given to only six groups among all of the participating students (elementary, junior high and high school).The Braininators received the award for the creativity of their puppet, “Cornjulio”, a corn cob genie puppet. They will be advancing to state on April 16th and 17th in Carrollton, Texas.
Placing second in the elementary division was a fourth grade team called “Brain Gang” Team members include: Kerstin Andrews, Garrett Croley, Kendall Jackson, Seth Jordan, Ryan Morris and Allison Todd. Their challenge was E Breaking DI News, and they had to build a structure out of newspaper and glue. They performed a skit about the news article, “The First Dinosaur Eggs Discovered”.
Placing third in the elementary division was the fourth grade “Cool Crew” team. Team members are:  Alexandria Tatum, Jaslyne Thomas, Julia Glass, Kelbi Winters and Kaelyn Winters. Their Challenge, Di-Bot, involved constructing a robot that had to complete a defined task.  The students had to incorporate the robot into a story that explained how a character’s life was changed by robotic technology.  The team members chose to go with a “Going Green” theme while including technology that would solve our air pollution problem, making the earth a better, cleaner place to live.

In fourth place were the “Smarticles”: Max McCarty, Lauren Glass, Lucy Gabriel, C.K. Hayes and Trey Hensley. Their challenge was also the DI-BOT. They invented a body scanner, and scanned one student from a janitor to a dancer.

Another fourth place winner was the Risky Christmas DI-Liverers, a third grade team. Team members are: Elizabeth Jones, Maddie Zimmerman, Paxton Ford, Devon Lout and Cielo Perez.
Their challenge was the DIrect DIposit. The object of the challenge was for the team to deliver objects over a six-foot by 10-foot wall and deposit them into 12-inch cubed boxes while performing a skit all in eight minutes. Communication was key in that the challenge called for the teams to devise a communication system that would direct the team member operating the delivery equipment toward each target in an effort to successfully deposit an item–without coming into contact with the wall.

The second grade team, Secret Sisters, didn’t place this year but enjoyed the learning experience. The team members are: Laurel Ainsworth, Katie Davis, Madison Haney, Jordan Jewell and Jade Tanguma. Their challenge, called “You’re Gonna Flip”, included an assignment where the students had to make a puppet that was a central character that had to interact with a person. They had to produce live art that reflected the flip and have a character that experienced a flip. Their puppet was a mummy named King Ding-a-ling.

Mr. Williford, St. Cyprian’s Head of School, said, “We are extremely proud of our students. It takes a lot of time and dedication to prepare for DI, and our students have put in long hours and produced amazing results. We are also grateful to their parents for their hard work, as DI is completely parent driven. We couldn’t have done it without their support.”

The mission of St. Cyprian’s School is to be a community of learners where students are challenged to achieve their highest academic, spiritual and physical potentials in a Christian setting. To find out more about the programs at St. Cyprian’s, please log on to: http://www.saintcyprians.org.