Lee Aase | Social Media University, Global (SMUG)

Bible Bowl Quoting Bee 2009

The National Bible Bowl competition, in which my kids participated over the last several days in Indiana, involves memorization of large sections of the Bible, at leas for those who want to be successful. Last year the assigned text was the Gospel of John, along with 1 John, 2 John, 3 John, 1 Peter and 2 Peter. This year the text covered six great prophets, and was taken from I Kings, 2 Kings, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Daniel and Jonah.

A relatively recent addition to the main competition is the Quoting Bee, in which participants are given a single verse reference, and within 10 seconds must begin to quote the verse, starting at the first word and ending exactly at the last word.

It’s hard enough to memorize an extended passage; pulling a verse right out of the middle of a chapter like Jeremiah 19:3 as my daughter Ruthie does in the video below (she’s the fifth contestant) is amazing:

Here is the climactic moment of the Quoting Bee, in which Ross Smith of Towne South (North Carolina) edged Breanna Hayes of Valley View (Dallas, TX) for the top spot:

Ruthie made it through six rounds of the qualifying contest and four rounds of the finals before making a mistake. She finished in a tie for sixth place.

Bible Bowl 2009

I’ve written some posts over the last couple of years about my kids being involved in Bible Bowl, such as this one from 2007 and this from 2008. My daughter Ruthie, who has been the “franchise player” for the team, just graduated from high school, so this year’s national competition in Indianapolis is her last.

Bible Bowl is a team game, but most teams typically have one key player who wins the toss-up questions. That’s Ruthie. So when I say “Ruthie won” or “Ruthie had a tough time in last year’s round robin” it’s because so much of the team’s performance depends on winning toss-up questions, and also because she is the hardest-working and most dedicated member of her team. Her brother Joe and sister Rebekah are key contributors to the Austin team, and it’s been great to have them all doing this together (Bekah also graduated in June; Joe will be in 9th grade next year.)

During the first couple of days of the competition the teams play a round robin format to determine seeding for the double elimination competition. The teams are grouped into pods or pools of 12 based on how they have done earlier in the year, and then those teams all play each other, and are seeded for the double elimination based on their pool record.

In some ways the round robin doesn’t really matter, as Ruthie showed last year. Her team lost every game in round robin, was seeded 12th, and still came back to finish fifth in the double elimination tournament. She’s kind of streaky that way.

This year she’s off to a much better start, with a 6-2 record and tied for first in the round robin, with three games tomorrow afternoon. Two of those games are against the teams with which Austin is tied, so it’s nice that she can just focus on the games she’s playing instead of depending on someone else losing.

Of course, the most important thing is that through the competition the kids are learning a lot and memorizing lots of scripture. But it’s nice to have Ruthie doing well in the competition since she has worked so hard.

Bible Bowl has been our family vacation for the last couple of years, as we went to Kansas City in 2007 and Atlanta in 2008. We’re glad to have my parents joining us again this year and Lisa’s dad attending for the first time. And a big highlight is that my daughter Rachel and her husband Kyle were able to come for the weekend with our granddaughter, Evelyn.

So for the next few days, until Wednesday, my Twitter stream will be mostly personal. If you want to follow the Bible Bowl tweets, you can use this hashtag: #BibleBowl09. Looks like I’m the only one using it right now, but let’s see if we can get that to change.

But now it’s time to stop blogging about vacation and resume my experience of it.

Here’s hoping everyone is having a great Independence Day!

Guest-Hosting For Immediate Release

Tomorrow I’m honored to get the chance to be a guest co-host on For Immediate Release: The Hobson & Holtz Report. Neville, the first half of the duo, has some conflicts and needed the week off, so Shel asked me to join him on the Thursday program. Steve Crescenzo filled in ably on Monday.

I’m looking forward to the experience; we’re recording at 11 a.m. CDT. Shel and I have exchanged topics for the discussion and I think it will be a good program. We’ll be talking some about social media in health care, but also some more general topics. Since it’s a podcast, you can’t listen live…but if you want to tweet questions or comments, use the #FIR tag. I will post the program when it’s done.

Update: Here’s the link to the FIR podcast post. Let me know what you think!

Gluten-Free Cake Mixes Coming

In my work at Mayo Clinic and working with our Sharing Mayo Clinic blog I got to meet Sheila Robb, a Twin Cities patient who is a former Miss Austin (Minn.), which also happens to be the world headquarters of SMUG. Here is Sheila’s story on Sharing Mayo Clinic.

As she mentions in the video, Sheila works for General Mills, maker of Chex cereals and Betty Crocker mixes. As we got to know each other and I mentioned that I had celiac disease, she told me about the line of gluten-free Betty Crocker dessert mixes General Mills is developing. And when she returned for her check-up, she left a sample of these mixes (which I don’t think are generally available yet) in my office (I was away.)

Here’s a little video I shot tonight after taking one bite of the gluten-free Devil’s Food cake:

Again, I emphasize that the opinions expressed here are my own, and not those of my employer. But they’re also the opinions of my wife, Lisa, and my son, John, who each had a piece. I had two pieces.

I appreciate when large organizations like General Mills, Outback Steakhouse and Chipotle Mexican Grill make it a point to accommodate those of us with celiac disease. I’m glad for the niche players too, who have served the celiac community and provided resources. But it means a lot when bigger businesses offer gluten-free options that really taste good and are reasonably priced.

Update: In keeping with our Mayo Clinic policy on personal acceptance of gifts, I brought the rest of the cake to the office to share with co-workers. I also want them to see how good this is so they buy gluten-free products, so there will be more of them offered.

FREE Ragan Webinar on Mayo Clinic Social Media

On Tuesday, August 4, I’m going to be presenting a free webinar, sponsored by Ragan Communications, on our Mayo Clinic social media experience.

The webinar was announced this morning, and Ragan CEO Mark Ragan tweeted this afternoon that the response has been strong:

I have no idea what kind of record is in the making, or what the old record might be, but if you’re interested I hope you will sign up to join us. Please pass this along to anyone you think might find it helpful.