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THSC CONGRATULATIONS!

We hope that everyone is enjoying the new format for the “Congratulations!” column. After much discussion over the past few years, the editorial board made the decision to post these encouraging accounts of home school student successes on the website. It keeps us from the limited schedule of only having new information in a quarterly publication; in addition, we can update information as it becomes available rather than filing and retrieving on the schedule of the magazine. We are not limited by available pages in the magazine. After this big introduction about the positives, we will make every effort to live up to the claims.

We are pleased to share the accomplishments and appreciate the submissions!

Texans Fare Well at National Speech and Debate Championship!

Texas was well represented at the 10th Annual National Christian Forensics and Communications Association Speech and Debate Championship held earlier this month at Patrick Henry College in Purcellville, Virginia.  More than 500 home school students from across the nation were involved in the tournament, of which forty-eight came from Texas to participate in Team Policy Debate, Lincoln Douglas Values Debate, and various individual speech events.

Our Texas competitors fared very well, many of whom are in their second year of competitive speech and debate.   In Team Policy debate Samantha Nasser and Brandon Smith from Speak Out North Texas placed 28th in the nation. This is the first year for Lincoln Douglas Values debate in Texas, but participants did well at National Opens as well as the National Championship.  Congratulations to all the Lincoln Douglas Values debaters in Texas, for venturing out into this new event. Of the 58 speeches, 14 broke to outrounds in six individual events.

National Finalists from Texas include:

1st place Duo Interpretation - Adam Hardy and Garrett Inkster of Way South Speech and Debate, Corpus Christi

1st Place Humorous Interp - Marshall Sherman of Speak Out North Texas, Bedford
7th place Humorous Interp - Alan Carrillo of Speak Out North Texas, Bedford

2nd Place Open Interp - David Umstattd of Austin Rhetoric Club, Austin
 

Congratulations to all students who participated in this incredible opportunity!

For more information on home school speech and debate in Texas, visit www.NCFCA.org or email Sarah Singleton, NCFCA Texas State Representative at TX_StateRep@ncfca.org.

Joshua Anderson

Joshua Anderson of College Station was selected to represent the United States on the Junior Male Recurve Team at the 8th World Indoor Archery Championships in Aalborg, Denmark, this past March.

Thirty-nine countries competed at this event. The Junior Male Recurve Team tied for third place in the world but fell to fourth after a shoot-off match. Joshua placed 24th in the world in the individual event.

He was also the first recipient of the Clarke Sinclair Memorial Archery Scholarship. This scholarship is awarded to the unfunded team members (third place) to help them get to the World Championships.

On August 15th, Joshua was chosen by the United States Olympic Committee to attend the U.S. Olympic Training Center in Chula Vista, California. He is currently training there for the 2008 Olympics.

To compete in archery, you can either contact your local 4-H County Extension Agent or the NAA (National Archery Association). Joshua started in 4-H and progressed from there. These websites offer more information and schedules of upcoming tournaments:

Texas State Archery Association

http://www.texasarchery.org/

USA Archery

http://www.usarchery.org/

Ian Perry

Ian Perry of Milford was awarded several scholarships from Baylor University.  He won the President's Baylor Scholarship in the amount of $8,000 per year, the Achievement Baylor Scholarship in the amount of $1,000 per year, and the J. Harry Phillips Scholarship in the amount of $3,500 per year.  These scholarships were based on Ian's SAT score, grade point average, and service and leadership activities.  Ian also has been accepted into Baylor's Honors Program.

See information regarding SAT testing at www.collegeboard.com.

Paul Hastings

Paul Hastings of Lago Vista was the co-winner of the 9th/10th grade piano contest of the AWANA Varsity USA 2004 National Fine Arts Competition. To see the newspaper article describing Paul's accomplishment, visit

www.hastingshome.com/paul/awanavusa2004piano.htm 

Students from around the nation who are in the high school AWANA program have an opportunity to participate in an annual competition in the categories of Writing, Preaching/Council Time, Expressive Arts, Vocal, Graphic Arts (drawing, painting, photography), Piano, and Multimedia. Contestants are evaluated by a panel of judges according to their skill and performance in their event.  The national AWANA Fine Arts Competition (renamed Summit) is open to participants in the high school AWANA program. Further information is available at

www.24-7ministries.net/limits/vusa/index.htm.

David Uhlman, Michael Waffle Waskow, and James Reese

David Uhlman, Michael Waffle Waskow, and James Reese of Kingwood won first place as the “Extra Technology” (ET) in the Texas Robofest competition in the spring of 2005. They have worked together for two years as "Extra Technology" robotics team (Team E.T.)  The boys (aged 12-14) worked together designing, constructing, programming, and competing with their robots.

Extra Technology recently placed first in the Texas State Robofest competition in Spring, Texas, qualifying to compete in the 2005 World Robofest Competition.  The Robofest Challenge, sponsored by Lawrence Technological University in Michigan, requires teams to use physics, mathematics, electronics, and computer programming to construct a fully autonomous robot capable of accomplishing a series of challenging tasks.

Extra Technology has also competed in the First Lego League (FLL) Challenge for the past 2 years.  In the 2004 FLL Challenge held in Houston in December, Team ET won first place in robot performance, going undefeated against more than eighty other teams.  Additionally, they won second place in the technical presentation category.  

Both Robofest and First Lego League Competitions judge teams on Robot Performance (competition with other robots), Technical Presentation (demonstrating knowledge of the robot's construction) and Teamwork.  The FLL competition also includes a research project.

See how to participate in these competitions at:

Robofest, visit www.robofest.net 

First Lego League, visit www.firstlegoleague.org

Heart of Texas Home Educators

The Heart of Texas Home Educators in Brownwood entered a float, at the suggestion of one of the students in the group, in an annual celebration the city holds. The theme for the parade was "On Fire."  The group built the float, painted it, and decorated it using that theme.  They used the quote "Education is not the filling of a bucket, but the lighting of a fire" that they had found on THSC’s website.  To make a long story short, they won first place! 

Congratulations to these civic-minded home schoolers for taking the initiative, making it happen, and winning first place!  They also made a positive statement for home schoolers in the “heart of Texas!”

If you are a parent/teacher of a student whose accomplishments you would like to see spotlighted in this column, complete the Congratulations Form, or you can contact THSC by phone at (806) 744-4441 or by email at staff@thsc.org. We prefer to receive information and photos by email but can work with the completed form and photo sent by U.S. mail to PO Box 6747, Lubbock, TX 79493. If you want your photo back, please enclose SASE.

View Archived Congratulations Pages:

September 2005

April 2005

January 2004

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