Five sets of Cory parents and siblings may merit an apology. They didn’t get their kids back. The kids they said good-bye to on May 18, who made up the team Fourth Dimension, which competed in the Creature Feature challenge at the Destination Imagination Global Finals, are gone forever. The kids they got back do bear a striking resemblance, and do answer to the same names: Gavin McKinzie, Ella Smith, Brady Schiff, Kyla Letko and Eliott Totman.
But these new kids are much bigger, stronger, keener. They more patient, nimble, opportunistic and world-wise. They have negotiated in friendly, earnest, successful ways with representatives from China, Columbia, Singapore, Louisiana, Poland and Qatar. These new kids navigate great success and glaring failure with about the same perspective: “Well, that that’s. What do we make happen next?” These new kids are in many ways more, and in some key ways less, than those family members said good-bye to just a few days ago.
P.S. Their managers, Robin Filipczak and Schuyler Totman, hope these new kids finished the homework assigned to those other five kids we won’t see again.