DI teams to vie at globals

A Madison team prepares to launch at the Destination Imagination State Tournament at the University of Alabama in Huntsville. CONTRIBUTED

MADISON – Six Destination Imagination (DI) teams in Madison qualified to compete at DI Global finals at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville on May 25-29.

Bob Jones High School will advance in Technical and Fine Arts Challenges and one other challenge. Horizon Elementary School qualified in both Structural and Service Learning Challenge and a ‘wildcard’ slot for Alabama; Heritage Elementary School for Improvisational Challenge; and West Madison Elementary School for Fine Arts Challenge.

To qualify, these Madison teams won first-place honors at the DI State Tournament at the University of Alabama in Huntsville on April 2.

“For about the tenth consecutive year, Madison City Schools will be the most-represented school district in the Alabama Globals delegation,” North Alabama Regional DI Director Robin Dauma said. Dauma teaches English at Bob Jones, serves as the district’s advanced-placement English lead and sponsors Bob Jones and Discovery DI teams.

Each team’s expenses for global finals will be about $6,000. “School coordinators and parents have moved into fundraising mode to make a dent in the $40,000 needed. We will be soliciting support from the community and businesses as we seek to support these hard-working, creative students as they represent our district and our city well,” Dauma said.

At Horizon, all three DI teams won global invitations to Knoxville. Two are going.

For their outreach to Manna House, the Cotton Candy Frappachino team and the Howling Wolves team both won first place in the middle school level for the Service Learning Challenge and Structural Section, respectively, Beth Bero said.

Bero is Horizon’s gifted special, DI sponsor and Howling Wolves team manager.

The Extra-Terrestrial Corn Chips team rated second for elementary in Technical Challenge for building a vehicle that carried a team member across the stage 40 times with two different propulsion methods. “They built a hover car that floated on air using a leaf blower,” Bero said.

“Now, we’re busy raising $10,010 to send these students to Knoxville,” Bero said.

Any organizations, businesses or individuals can support DI students by contacting any school sponsor by phone, email or mailing a check payable to the school to the sponsor’s attention. Other sponsors are Rachel Gibbs at Heritage and Wendy Tibbs at West Madison.