Odyssey students earn trip to World Finals, scholarships
Several Yuma teams are headed to the Odyssey of the Mind World Finals in Ames, Iowa, next week.
Teams planning to attend the competition are: Gowan Science Academy, Yuma Catholic High School, and the East Valley Cre8tive Kids community team. Odyssey of the Mind is an international educational organization, with teams from all over the world competing.
Teams have been working all school year to develop and refine an 8-minute skit that solves one of five published problems. Each problem combines classroom elements of Humanities and STEM fields (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math), and students also write the script, construct their sets, create costumes, and build mechanical props.
All the sets and props, which are required to be built with limited funds, and are largely made of recycled materials, have to travel with them to the World Competition.
Teams are busy fundraising with restaurant takeovers, car washes and other ideas. The contest is May 23–27.
The cost for teams to get to Iowa depends on the number of students going and way of travel, said OTM parent Lori Stofft. The Yuma Catholic High School team and the East Valley Cre8tive Kids community team are working to raise nearly $20,000 to finance the trip.
Expenses include airfare, room and board on the campus of host school Iowa State University, registration fees, rental cars and supplies for Odyssey traditions like pin trading and shirt swapping.
The YC and EastValley teams are linked by their coaches, who have many years of Odyssey experience. Dawn Whinnery teaches for both University of Arizona and Arizona Western College, and Adele Hennig, who works at Community Intervention Associates, won last year’s Heart of Yuma Volunteer of the Year for her dedication to local Odyssey kids over nearly two decades.
Three Yuma-area OTM students earned college scholarships at the April Arizona state competition. Yuma Catholic Seniors Nathan Whinnery and Quentin Henning both earned state and national college scholarships, and Jordan Elliot, also a senior, brought home a state scholarship.
The YC and EV teams are hosting a Lutes Casino takeover and silent auction this Wednesday (May 16) from 5–8 p.m. with a plethora of prizes from over two dozen local businesses such as Bare Naked Soaps.
The teams get a percentage of the food sales that night when diners mention Odyssey of the Mind.
The Yuma Catholic team is made of Nathan Whinnery, Quentin Hennig, Jordan Elliott, Kaitlyn Lawseth, Belyn Naquin, and Miguel Medez-Perulles. The East Valley Cre8tive Kids community team, which is not affiliated with a school, is made up of Emerson and Oliver Behunin, Liza Drake, Bailey Navy and Mary Stofft.
The GSA team has five students: Devlyn Reese, Daisy Boelts, Melanie Moore, Jonathan Henson, and Kristin Mitchell.
East Valley Cre8tive Kids also has a Go Fund Me account set up under https://www.gofundme.com/odyssey-of-the-mindworldsyumaevck.