Listen to this articleMiddletown girl is finalist for $10,000 memory championship
Middletown, OH—A Middletown fifth-grader will embark in less than three weeks on a voyage to become a national memory champion and earn a $10,000 grand prize.
Bailey LaRue, 11, of Middletown, is one of 16 finalists in the National Memory Master competition. On May 2 Bailey will compete in three rounds of academic memory testing during a five-day cruise to the Bahamas aboard the Carnival cruise ship Victory. Each of the finalists received two free tickets to the cruise and $800 in traveling money.
“I know I’m going on a cruise,” Bailey said, “but I still can’t believe I’m a part of a national competition!”
The 16 finalists have already been through a rigorous series of local and regional competitions to reach the finals. Bailey presented a 3-minute historical presentation which included 12 required history references combined into one seamless “news report” using her own creativity in order to qualify for National Memory Master.
The National Memory Master competition is hosted by Classical Conversations, a classical education resource used by homeschoolers in all 50 states and 14 foreign countries. Classical Conversations now has more than 93,000 students enrolled in its tutoring programs.
Bailey attends a Classical Conversations community in North Lebanon, Ohio. She is the daughter of Glenn and Amy LaRue and is the oldest of five children. Bailey is finishing her fourth year as a Classical Conversations, or CC, student.
Bailey loves math, and also plays basketball and softball competitively, and plays the piano and enjoys reading. She is a member of University Baptist Church in Middletown where her father serves as pastor.
In addition to the National Memory Masters competition, the first CC Capstone Cruise will also feature the third annual National Number Knockout finals and CC’s first high school commencement.
CC provides resources, guidance and a community for a home school curriculum using classical education in three developmental stages: grammar, dialectic and rhetoric, and taught from a Christian worldview, according to its founder, Leigh Bortins. She says CC supports homeschooling parents by cultivating the love of learning through a Christian worldview in fellowship with other families. She believes there are three keys to a great education: classical, Christian and community.
Started in 1997 and headquartered in West End, North Carolina, CC is a family-owned company that provides services to almost 1,900 CC communities around the world. For more information visit www.classicalconversations.com.
Contact:
John Carpenter, Communication Journalist
Classical Conversations
(423) 618-3753
jcarpenter@classicalconversations.com
