Abigail Francis is crowned ‘Courts 2011 Reading Champion’

Courts St Lucia Ltd in conjunction with the Ministry of Education and Culture on Tuesday October 11th hosted the finals of the St Lucia leg of the third annual Courts OECS Schools Reading Competition.
Preliminary rounds were held at the district level and the winner from each district, moved on to Tuesday’s finals.  In attendance to witness to high level competition were students and teachers from the participating schools, District Educations Officers, representatives from the Ministry of Education and Culture, UNESCO, employees from Courts as well as parents.
The buzz through the CSA Centre was exhilarating, as the participants, prepared to give their best performance to capture the prestigious title;  Niah Joseph from the Bonne Terre Preparatory school, Ryu Garnet Eugene from the Gordon Walcott Memorial Methodist school, Gabrielle Walsh from the Tapion Private school, Kiran Harrigan from the L’Abayee SDA primary school, Abigail Francis from the Micoud Primary school, Ritika Bahlla from the Plain View Combined school, Ashleigh Herman from the River Doree Combined School, Kayla Lansiquote from the Bouton Primary school.
The competition was broken down in two segments; the “Narrative” was the first and the “New Piece” was the second.  All finalists got to read the same narrative for the first segment but in the second segment, each read a different up-to-date news items.
The competition was fierce as each brilliant mind read with conviction, with excellent delivery, diction and confidence but in the end, only one could walk away with title.
The judges, Mrs Onel Sanford Belle, Ms Sharon Williams, Dr Anthony Felicien and Ms Brenda Paul all had the very difficult task set out for them; a task they handled very well and at the end of the competition, named the winner of the St Lucia leg of the Courts 2011 Reading Competition.  That person
. . . . the Champion was none other than Abigail Francis, from the Micoud Primary Student.  She was nothing short of exceptional and represented her school and district outstandingly!  As part of her winnings, Abigail secured $2000 in cash for herself and another $2000 in cash for her school!  She will also get to read a segment of the evening news on both DBS and HTS as well as co-host an upcoming episode of the Courts fortnightly infomercial, Courts Good News.
In second place was Kiran Harrigan from the L’Abayee SDA Primary School and he won $750 in cash and in third place was Gabrielle Walsh from the Tapion Private school, who won $500 in cash.
We take this opportunity to wish Abigail all the best at the finals, which will be held in St Kitts next week.  Just by being a participant in the OECS finals in St Kitts, Abigail has also secured herself a top of the line laptop from Courts.  Therefore, she will get an opportunity to shine and hopefully bring the title home to St Lucia.  If she wins the OECS title in St Kitts, she will win herself $5000 in cash as well as other prizes, as well as another $5000 for her school.
Courts OECS is very proud of this competition, which seeks to promote literacy among our youth and regards it as money well-invested in an effort to secure their future.
Courts Bring Value Home.