By Graham Sturgeon, staff writer
Durand’s Destination Imagination (DI) team competed in the DI Global Finals in Knoxville, Tenn. during the week of May 18 through May 23, and they came away happy with their results. Competing in the “Community Service/Outreach” challenge group, the Durand team placed 29th out of 56 teams.
The team, in its seventh year of existence, focused their collective efforts on improving the literacy of Durand citizenry for their community service project by building and placing book exchange stations throughout the city. Though their competitive season is over, the team will continue in its endeavor to eradicate literacy deficiencies across Durand by maintaining their book exchange stations (which can be found at Shaw’s Pharmacy, Durand Union Station, Dietrich’s Flower Shop and the Bancroft Veterinary Clinic) and by reading to children at the district’s summer lunch program at Bertha Neal.
Charter member Daniel Greeson was impressed with the team’s improvement this year and was pleased with their showing in Knoxville. “The global competition was a great experience for us. We improved a lot from states (on April 18) and I was just glad that we finished in the top half of our group. We also met people from all over the world during the week, so we all had a great time.”
The five-person team, which consists of Greeson, Anna Dietrich, Tatianna Fraley, Silver Graham and Rachel Buhler, will return intact for the 2015-2016 season. The team has not decided whether they will again do a community outreach project or if they will tackle one of the other five available challenges.
