Talent!!!

Howdy everyone - I hope that everyone had a good weekend and a productive Beltane : ) I spent the Walpurgisnacht (Friday night for the un-illuminated) judging the first annual Franklin arts competition!

I was honored to be asked to be a judge, and despite my usual inclination to get home on Friday night as quickly as possible, I really enjoyed the experience!!! We had a very good crowd and, as usual, everyone was really supportive of the performers! It's one reason that I really love doing things like this: you get to see that the community and the students can be incredibly supportive and positive, as long as they are not being asked to write another essay : )

Here's me and my fellow judges waiting for the contest to begin as the people came in. There are two things that I learned from the experience: one is that it is very difficult to judge people, especially our students, who are so awesome for just doing this!! Secondly, a cell phone is not necessarily the best thing for taking pictures in dim light.

Although there were many categories, including spoken word and dance, the most hotly contested was the music competition. Franklin does have some terrific young musicians, and this contest really proved that!! Here are the two winners, Adrian and Jonathan. I tried not to be influenced by the fact that Adrian is one of my favorite 11th grade students, but it really wasn't necessary since they really stood out, even in a strong field.

These two are step-brothers who moved to the area recently from Hawaii, and they are both super-talented!! Adrian (in the hat) plays ukulele (I was happily reminded of Nick and Chris!!) and has wonderful stage presence. They are both great singers, and Jonathan later competed in the dance category (and won) by doing some moves, like spinning hand-stands, that you would only expect to see on Apple commercials. They got the crowd clapping along and on their feet at the end, and I would be really surprised if either one of them had trouble getting a date for the weekend : ) They definitely deserved their win, and were part of a really fun night for all of us!

Hope everyone had a great weekend!!