Pageants & Names (quick f.ball update)

I believe everyone is entitled to name their children what they would like. I believe unique names are a good thing for the most part. And I understand a parent's desire to change the spelling of their child's name if it is a popular name they have chosen! More power to these parents!

This past Saturday was mine, my mom and sister's fourth year at directing the Timberfest Pageant in Sheridan! Just a small festival pageant, but it is loads of fun and not to mention loads of work!

It never fails, every year we have people complain that we mispronounced their name or a child's name. And while our emcee was changing clothes to entertain the crowd, I took over the emceeing for one group! I was thinking fine, this will be great! I love talking to audiences and love to emcee...so no big deal! I glanced over the names of the girls in the group to make sure I could say their names and I guess I didn't look close enough. As I was announcing each contestant I found one name that I had no idea how to say! Oh, goodness! And I discovered I had no clue what this child's name was immediately after I announced her number for her to come out on stage and it went something like this...

"Contestant # 5"........................................??????????????? ( I turned to my sister and she had no idea of what to say and we were both speechless), then I turned to the little girl who is standing on stage wondering what is going on and said "Sweet heart, I am sorry I do not know how to pronounce your name!" She yelled from across the stage Mikayla!!! Oh, yes Mikayla! Really...

Oh, goodness how stupid of me right! Well, it looked like Michaela so I said Michael - a. I felt terrible; however, I blame this parent for this goof up! I understand the desire to spell your child's name differently, I do! However, when your child is in a pageant or anything else to where their name has to be read by a stranger over a sound system -- it is best to just spell it the normal way or what would be easiest for the person emceeing! Our poor emcee also did this with a parent's name. The name was spelled Charla so that is what she said "CHarla." Well, the mom was irate backstage because it should have been pronounced Sharla! Now who's fault is that!

Moral of the story is - when your name or your child's name is being announced somewhere by someone you don't know. Spell the name how it should look in a normal way or how it should SOUND! Then everyone is happy!


Football update - We won our first conference game on Friday night against a very good and fast Forrest City team! Jeff was drenched after the game and it wasn't sweat! The boys got him good! There is a big excitement in the town of Paragould about this football team and it is fun to see! Thanks for all your prayers! We play a very good Wynne football team this Friday!