Contact: Tammy Lane • First Posted: Wednesday, May 4, 2011

Two teams from Rosa Parks Elementary won top honors in the Destination ImagiNation state tournament and advance to the global finals May 25-28 in Knoxville, Tenn.

Thirteen teams from across Kentucky competed March 19 at host Henry Clay High School. The three from Rosa Parks were this year’s only representatives from Fayette County Public Schools.

Rosa Parks’ fourth-grade team, the Cupcakes of Destiny, took first place in the Improvisation Challenge. Members included Stephanie Yang, Shamik Chandrachood, Hannah Broomhall, Neal Rekrhaj, Elyse Halwes, Ben Florence and Adam Telechbush. 

Their fifth-grade team, the Trophy Thieves, also earned a first-place award for Christian Barker, Hannah Probst, Olivia Geveden, Michael Naish, Cameron Maloney, Caitline Phan and Madi Halwes. 

The school’s second-grade team, the Original Creators of Extreme Thinking, was runner-up in its division. This group included Dylan Lifshitz, Evelyn Hinz, Elle Wesley, Alison Otipoby, Rishi Dronadula and Brendan Naish.

Rosa Parks’ teams were also recognized for their outstanding creativity and sportsmanship.

Destination ImagiNation is a problem-solving program that helps young people work and grow as a team while enhancing their own self-confidence and skills. Each of the challenges offers a different focus such as mathematics, technical design and construction, experimentation, theater arts, social studies, research, story development, architecture, geography, structural engineering and other disciplines that require critical-thinking skills.

For more information, visit http://www.ky-di.org/.