Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: TUESDAY, May 29, 1990                   TAG: 9005290020
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: B-1   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: MONICA DAVEY STAFF WRITER
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

ODYSSEY OF MIND TEAM PERSEVERES

During one performance, 13-year-old Mark Finney's Zeus costume fell to the floor, leaving him red-faced in his underwear. At another point, 12-year-old Erica Hodgin could not get the plug of a key prop, an Egyptian lighthouse, to fit into the socket. Another time, some of the students' pyramid-shaped hats fell off their heads.

But the show went on.

"That's part of the point" of Odyssey of the Mind, said Judi Finney, one of the team's coaches. "If they had stopped and fallen apart, it would have meant points off."

Instead, the Community School team went right on - adjusting to unexpected problems - and won regional and state competition.

Thursday the team will take its show on the road to Odyssey of the Mind world competition at Iowa State University. A program designed to encourage young people to play mental games and solve problems, Odyssey of the Mind calls for creative approaches to assigned problems in locomotion, animation, classics, recycling, nature and engineering.

The team from Community School, which is located at 7815 Williamson Road, took on the classics problem, which put a new twist on the Seven Wonders of the World. The students had to incorporate five of the wonders into a skit - and come up with five new wonders of their own.

When they started on the problem last winter, most of the students couldn't name the seven ancient wonders and had to head to the library. Now they rattle them off in no time: pyramids of Giza, Hanging Gardens of Babylon, statue of Zeus at Olympia, Temple of Artemis at Ephesus, Mausoleum of Halicarnassus, Colossus of Rhodes and Pharos of Alexandria.

Picking out their own wonders of the world from a set of assigned categories raised disagreement among the students. One of those wonders had to be of great "benefit to society." They considered computers, drugs or maybe DNA, but - with two dancers and a piano player in the group - they finally agreed on music.

Despite raging debates, team members say work on the Odyssey of the Mind project actually brought them closer together. They have practiced together four to five hours a week since January at Finney's and coach Penny Rossi's houses. The students had to build all their own props and sew their own costumes, while keeping expenses under $75.

Some of them hadn't known each other well before it started. "We learned to work together and be creative," said 12-year-old Debra Kurshan.

Their end project was an eight-minute musical. With 11-year-old Brooke Shoenfeld on keyboard, the group sings about ancient wonders to the tune of pop music.

One of three Roanoke-area groups to make it to world competition, the Community School team members now have another problem to solve. They've raised $1,300 in contributions so far for transportation and housing at the Iowa State event, but need another $1,700 to pay all their costs. Donations can be made payable to "Community School OM Fund."

Teams from three other Western Virginia schools have qualified for World Odyssey of the Mind: James River High School in Botetourt County, Hidden Valley Junior High School in Roanoke County and Gilbert Linkous Elementary School from Montgomery County.