Port St. Joe High School Odyssey of the Mind advances to World Tournament

Odyssey of the Mind teams from both Gulf County high schools competed at the State Tournament last week, with all Gulf County teams placing within the top five in their respective categories.

The Port St. Joe High School team, who placed in second, will be moving on to compete at the World Tournament, which is being held in Lansing, Michigan next month.

Wewahitchka High School’s Middle School team placed in fifth at the state tournament, and the high school team placed in fourth.

Odyssey of the Mind is an international educational program that provides creative problem-solving opportunities for students from kindergarten through college. 

In it, student groups of about five to seven are given a prompt to which they are tasked to create a short play in which characters address the assigned prompt. Students are also responsible for costume and set design.

Each of the three Gulf County teams competed in a different prompt category.

Port St. Joe High School’s team competed in the division three category for the prompt “Classics… The Walls of Troy,” in which students were tasked to create a story that was based on Homer’s Iliad.

The older group from Wewahitchka competed in the Division Two category for the same prompt, and the younger group competed in the category “The Most Dramatic Problem Ever,” in which students were tasked to imagine a dramatic problem for their characters to overcome.

The Port St. Joe High School team is accepting donations from the community to help fund the students’ travel to Michigan, meals and hotel room stay. Donations can be made via Venmo at username @psjhsOM.