A Long Journey And Wonderful Year

To the Editor:

I would like to take this opportunity to thank an amazing group of girls — Charlotte Gray, Katie Wojcik, Bethany Dubois, and Rebecca Vodola — who were part of a long journey and wonderful year: Odyssey of the Mind. They, along with their outstanding leader Dawn Gray, allowed me the opportunity to co-coach this group of young ladies through this gifted after-school program. There were five difficult problems to choose from.

Our girls chose to build a car that then had to perform four sports-related tasks. They rose to the challenge and competed at our state competition and won a spot to attend the world competition. They faced many obstacles and overcame them with skill and took “thinking outside the box” to a new level. The experience of competing at a competition with students from around the world is a life experience that I am sure all the girls will remember. The culmination was being teamed up with an international group affording us the fun of taking home a team from Poland for five days. What a great experience for all the students involved!

I would like to thank all the families of these gifted young ladies (especially Dawn’s). A big thank you also to all who helped support our trip, with funds or donations for our tag sale, which helped get us to Maryland. Thank you to Dianna Ricci who came along as our chaperone and also to MTM Transportation for helping us with transporting the Polish team to JFK, and last but not least to Reed Intermediate School and Donna Denniston for sponsoring this after-school program.

Anna Wiedemann

13 Clearview Drive, Sandy Hook                                    June 10, 2008