At Contestant's Day on June 19 our Drill Team competed at the state level.  We were the only team competing, but I caught it on video.  I'll be capturing part of it to a file so that you can view it here. 

Other winners that went on to the New England Youth Conference in Connecticut were - Kim Holden for Lip Sync, Mike Holden for Public Speaking & Sign-a-song & Gina Mason for Public Speaking.

Michael also won the Talent competition which is a Home Economics contest.  That win sends him to the National Grange Conference in November.

Jody Haynes was chosen to be our Female Youth Ambassador.  Not only is she my cousin, she was also the leader of our drill team.  I wish her the best at the National Conference.

Pix from Contestant's Day 99

At the conference - held at the University of Connecticut - we had a lot of VT youth show up.  There were approx. 18 youth & 4 senior youth from VT - I thought it was a good turnout for such a long drive.

Kim competed on Friday night & tied for first in her age group in Lip Sync.  She did a vampy version of Brittany Spears' "Oh, Baby, Baby" - look out Brittany - you have competition!

On Saturday, we had several workshops that were well attended.  I really enjoyed the Wildlife specialist - whose name I have forgotten.  He was entertaining & interesting - but I'll sure stay away from those baby alligators, they're very MESSY.

The Public Speaking & Sign-a-song competitions were on Saturday afternoon.  Gina got a participants ribbon & Michael finished second in Public Speaking in their respective age groups.  Michael then gave a stellar performance in Sign-a-song & took first place.  Look for him at the National Conference Nov 8th - 14th.

Saturday night was the banquet & dancing until dawn (well, not quite.)  "A good time was had by all" - and the kids were very tired the next morning.

Sunday morning brought the Drill Team competition.  All contestants were very nervous.  One of the Massachusetts team members had injured her knee the night before & the Mass. team had a rush of last minute rehearsals to pull together a "missing man" march.  As the morning wore on, there were some brilliant performances, some not-so-brilliant performances & clutch performances.  In the end, the Mass. team won & the Rhode Island team finished second in what I would say was a very tight competition.  The Vermont team really pulled it together after a missed cue or two, kept their wits about them & were rewarded with a third place finish.

We were all tired by the end of the weekend & glad to get home.  A great big thanks to Connecticut for being great hosts!