Wandering Minds Make For An Epic Tale Tiny School In Fourth Odyssey Of The Mind Championship

For the fourth time, tiny Northport High School is sending a team to the world championships of a contest that pits brain over brawn.

Northport’s achievement in Odyssey of the Mind competitions is the academic equivalent of the Eastern Washington University football team winning a berth in the Rose Bowl.

“We’re kind of proud,” said Karma Goodwin, one of two teacher-coaches who developed Northport’s Odyssey dynasty in the way Vince Lombardi built the Green Bay Packers.

Students, teachers and civic leaders are scrambling to raise $8,500 by May 22 so the Northport “OM” team can travel to the world championships at Disney World in Orlando, Fla.

The seven-member squad already has about half the money, but coming up with the balance is still a box-car-sized load for an ant-sized school. Northport High has 97 students, and the whole city of Northport has only 387 residents.

Still, they pulled it off in 1989, 1994 and 1995.

Community efforts to raise thousands of dollars every few years for Odyssey of the Mind championship trips are about as remarkable as the rural school’s ability to outperform big city schools in regional and state Odyssey competitions.

Northport, about 30 miles north of Colville, near the Canadian border, is one of the most economically depressed areas in the state. Its timber and mining industries have been comatose for years, and a 40 percent currency discount is keeping Canadian shoppers away.

Still, fund raising for the school’s 1995 trip to the Odyssey world finals was so successful that about $4,000 was left over for this year’s trip. Anything left over from this year’s fund drive also will be banked for a future championship.

The question is not whether Northport’s Odyssey powerhouse will send another team, but how many it may send at once.

Goodwin and co-coach Kris Nesse almost had to worry about sending two teams this year.

While Odyssey of the Mind competitions are not segregated by size, there are elementary, middle school and high school categories. Northport entered all the age categories, and its middle school team placed second among 11 teams at the state championships last Saturday at Yakima.

The elementary team was sixth among 11, while the high school squad bested a field of five.

“I think it’s just a matter of time until we send two teams,” Goodwin said. “That will really be scary.”

Perhaps it’s just a matter of time until Northport wins a world championship. But Nesse said the goal so far is just to finish in the top 10 of the 50 to 60 teams that compete each year.

So far, the school has moved steadily nearer its goal. Northport placed 25th in 1989, 13th in 1994 and 12th in 1995.

What’s the secret?

“We have the most creative kids in the world,” Nesse said. “I really believe that.”

She thinks being rural is an advantage for Northport in a competition that emphasizes creativity.

“You don’t just go out and buy things,” Nesse said. “Kids go out in the alley or look in their barns for things, and I think that leads to more creative thinking.”

The challenge for this year’s team was to design a balsawood structure that will hold hundreds of pounds of weight without being seen, then to crush the structure within eight minutes while keeping judges entertained. Or something like that.

The camouflaged structure must not exceed 15 grams in weight, 8-1/4 inches in height and 2-1/2 inches in width or depth. Weights are stacked on top, one by one, to see how much the tower can hold before collapsing.

Team members perform a skit while piling on the weights. The tower represents a businesswoman whose pursuit of success adds more and more stress to her life until she crumbles and goes on to find happiness without materialism. Or something like that.

“When the kids came up with this stuff, Kris and I just went, ‘Whoa, where did they get this?”’ Goodwin said.

Their structure held 685 pounds at the state championships, and Goodwin said a practice model held 725 pounds.

“We figure, in world (championships), that it will need to go to at least 1,000 pounds,” Goodwin said. “They’ve got some ideas.”

She said the team is studying varying densities of balsawood and experimenting with new designs. Videotapes of prototypes being crushed are analyzed and re-analyzed.

Although none of this year’s team has competed previously in a world championship, most have several years of experience on the school’s nonchampionship teams.

Members are: seniors Amanda Fisher, Posey Gruener, Wade McDonald and Brandy Jones; sophomore Leeza Cameron; and freshmen Bryan Carlson and Jonas Goodwin.

HOW TO HELP Donations of cash or prizes for a benefit bingo game may be sent to: Northport OM, Northport High School, P.O. Box 180, 408 10th St., Northport, WA 99157. For more information, call Kris Nesse and Karma Goodwin at (509) 732-4430.