Previous Story
Saipan students make the big trip to the Thespian Festival every year
|
Posted on Jun 24 2011
[B]By MICAH MERTES[/B]
[I]Lincoln Journal Star [/I]
[I]Editor’s Note: This story was originally published in the Lincoln Journal Star on June 23, 2011. It is being published here with permission.[/I]
Nearly 3,000 delegates flocked to Lincoln for this year’s Thespian Festival, which takes place this week on the University of Nebraska-Lincoln campus. Some groups had a long trip, but some groups had a looooong trip.
For 33 delegates from Saipan, it took a day and a half of nonstop travel and delays to get here. They make the trip every year, no matter the cost, the distance or the 12-hour delay in Houston.
“I think half of us cracked,” said Vinni Giovanni, 16, of Marianas High School. “But we pulled through. This is one of the big events of the summer for our school. Coming here is a really big deal for us. It’s worth the trip.”
A brief geographical interlude: Saipan is the largest island in the United States Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, a chain of 15 tropical islands belonging to the Marianas archipelago in the western Pacific Ocean.
How big is it?
“It’s about 39 square miles,” Giovanni said.
“No, no,” interrupted Harold Easton, Marianas High School teacher and chapter director of Thespians of the Western Pacific Islands. “Five by 15. That’s 45 square miles. Don’t make it sound smaller than it is.”
Saipan’s population is around 50,000.
For the Saipan students, the Thespian Festival is a good opportunity to meet with schools and scout prospects for education on the mainland. It’s also just a lot of fun, they said.
“A big deal for us about coming here,” Easton said, “we get to see the wildlife.”
“Squirrels!” a dozen students shouted in unison.
“We just saw fireflies for the first time last night,” Giovanni said.
Saipan doesn’t have fireflies?
“We don’t have fireflies,” Easton said. “We don’t have squirrels. We don’t have rabbits. These things do not exist in Saipan.”
