[B]By MICAH MERTES[\/B]
\n[I]Lincoln Journal Star [\/I]<\/p>\n
[I]Editor\u2019s Note: This story was originally published in the Lincoln Journal Star on June 23, 2011. It is being published here with permission.[\/I]<\/p>\n
Nearly 3,000 delegates flocked to Lincoln for this year\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think half of us cracked,\u201d said Vinni Giovanni, 16, of Marianas High School. \u201cBut 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\u2019s worth the trip.\u201d<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
How big is it?<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s about 39 square miles,\u201d Giovanni said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cNo, no,\u201d interrupted Harold Easton, Marianas High School teacher and chapter director of Thespians of the Western Pacific Islands. \u201cFive by 15. That\u2019s 45 square miles. Don\u2019t make it sound smaller than it is.\u201d<\/p>\n
Saipan\u2019s population is around 50,000.<\/p>\n
For the Saipan students, the Thespian Festival is a good opportunity to meet with schools and scout prospects for education on the mainland. It\u2019s also just a lot of fun, they said.<\/p>\n
\u201cA big deal for us about coming here,\u201d Easton said, \u201cwe get to see the wildlife.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cSquirrels!\u201d a dozen students shouted in unison.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe just saw fireflies for the first time last night,\u201d Giovanni said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Saipan doesn\u2019t have fireflies?<\/p>\n
\u201cWe don\u2019t have fireflies,\u201d Easton said. \u201cWe don\u2019t have squirrels. We don\u2019t have rabbits. These things do not exist in Saipan.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Nearly 3,000 delegates flocked to Lincoln for this year\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-153005","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/153005","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=153005"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/153005\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=153005"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=153005"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=153005"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}