Following is a message from Rustin Buck, Director of Houstonfest:
Dear speakers and friends of the German language,
I would like to invite you to help promote the study of the German language in the Houston area by serving as a “judge” at the Houstonfest German contest. Some of you have helped us before and we’d love to have you back, and for others it would be the first time – we’re always looking for new people to help.
What is Houstonfest? It is an annual competition for students in grades 8 through 12 who are learning German in school. They compete in 42 different categories such as skit, culture test, photography, puppet show, folk dance, contemporary music, and poetry reading. The winners qualify to attend the Texas State German Contest, where they compete against the winners of the other two regional contests Sprachfest in the Austin/San Antonio area and Winterfest in the Dallas area. Last year, we had 708 students from 22 schools participating. You can learn more about Houstonfest at www.houstonfest.org.
This year’s Houstonfest will be on Saturday, February 3. Our usual location, Heights High School, is booked for another event, so for one year only we’ll be at Hogg Middle School, 1100 Merrill Street, Houston 77009. This is very close to Heights High School, and I’ll send out more information in January about how to get there.
To make the contest successful, we need as many German speakers as possible to evaluate the students’ performances. No special training is necessary, just some knowledge of the German language and/or the culture of the German-speaking countries. No one is ever assigned to judge a competition alone; you’re always on a team of two or three judges.
Please let me know by replying to this email to rustinbuck@comcast.net if you are available and willing to serve on February 3 from 7:15 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. I know that’s early in the morning, but we’ll serve you coffee and breakfast! If you have a preference for which event you would like to judge, let me know (see the full listing on the website).
Thank you for your consideration, and please do forward this information to others who might be interested.
Frohe Festtage und einen guten Rutsch ins Neue Jahr 2018 wünscht
Rustin Buck
Director of Houstonfest
German Teacher, Clements High School
