Signe's score on October 30th tied with classmate Luke Hughes, but she won the coin toss to go to Spokane. Gunnar did awesome, and he got the second-highest point tally for poetry behind a boy who received perfect scorecards from the 3 judges. That meant he wasn't going to move on, but because no one in Gunnar's 3rd grade class earned a superior ribbon in the fable category, his teacher gave him the option of learning a fable and presenting it for that category at the Oaks in Spokane.
Gunnar said he was up for the challenge of memorizing and perfecting a new selection in only 2 weeks. It helped that he chose to do the same fable Signe did last year ("The Fox and the Crow"), so he was very familiar with it. He really was doing a great job practicing at home, so I was starting to believe he might pull off another blue ribbon, but he came home from Spokane with a red "excellent" ribbon today. Nick drove up as a chaperone and said Gunnar did terrific (he's a little biased, obviously), but apparently the judging was super tough with only 3 superiors given out to all of the kids in the fable category. Signe was pretty downtrodden last year when she got a red for the same reason.
This year, however, was Signe's time to shine. She really worked to improve even more over her earlier performance, and it paid off. At the awards ceremony they ask the student with the highest score from each category to perform again in front of everyone, and Signe was called up. She was very excited.
I really need to record them reciting their pieces so you can see them hard at work.
Here's a picture after they got home from Spokane late this afternoon (with the resident photobomber also in action).