Four BSM students have displayed outstanding creativity and unparalleled quick thinking skills that have landed them a spot in the Destination ImagiNation state competition. With top scores and clever skits, they are ready to face the competition.

A team of BSM freshman, Nate Muckley, Julie Flannery, Madeline Goodell and Emily Busch, are coached by Deborah Flannery and practice every Tuesday. “We went to regionals and got second place for our grade level and so we’re going to state,” said Nate Muckley.

Destination ImagiNation is a community-based, school-friendly program that allows students to use their creativity, problem solving skills, and teamwork in order to solve team challenges having to do with theater arts, fine arts, science, structural and architectural design, and more.

If the team makes it through the state tournament, they will advance to globals. “If we get in the top three at state, we’ll go to globals which we went to last year, but we don’t think we’ll go this year,” said Muckley.

At Destination ImagiNation tournaments, the teams are given chores that they need to complete and an obstacle that they need to overcome. “We have thirty minutes to make up a skit,” said Muckley, “One minute before we go on, they tell us a famous person that we need to incorporate into the skit.”

The teams have central and instant challenges that they need to solve. Central Challenges are sets of required elements that each team needs to complete. Central Challenges also have side trips, two additional elements teams need to create and include in their presentation of their central challenge. Instant Challenges are solved in about five to eight minutes at the tournament.

“We’re not suppose to reveal it for a month after,” said Muckley, about what his team’s Instant Challenge was. “Last Year we had five minutes to make a skit with two cheerleading cheers in it and it needed to be two minutes long.”

Each team is judged on their creativity of their main and instant challenges. Judges give each team raw scores and ranks; the teams who receive the highest numerical rankings advance to the next tournament.

Courtney Johnson, staff writer