SOUTH GRANT COUNTY — Students from two Grant County schools competed in the Amazing Shake on Friday, Jan. 31. The Amazing Shake, started by the Ron Clark Academy in Atlanta, Georgia, teaches kids soft skills such as eye contact, how to shake hands, how to have a conversation and how to think on their feet.

Approximately 150 fifth- through eighth-grade Wahluke School District students completed in “the gauntlet,” a series of 23 stations that challenge students to recall what they have studied and to improvise in situations thrown at them.

This was the second time this year that these students had competed in the Amazing Shake. Before Christmas break, all of Wahluke’s fifth- through eighth-grade students participated in “the mini-gauntlet.” The mini-gauntlet only had three stations, compared to the full gauntlet that had 23.

“The gauntlet is supposed to be a difficult challenge that puts them through a variety of things,” said Andy Harlow, principal of Wahluke Junior High. “It’s not the yellow brick road with hugs, flowers and hula hoops. They are going to fail. They have to be able to gather themself and put themselves back together. I tell kids that it is designed so you will struggle. They have to have the resilience to think on the fly.”

On Monday, Feb. 3, the top 30 students competed in a debate in front of grades five through eight. The top 20 from that round will go on to the regional Amazing Shake in the Tri-Cities at the end of the month.

This is the fourth year that Wahluke has done the “Amazing Warrior Shake,” as they call it. They have sent students to nationals twice. The top 10 students from the district get to go.

Harlow said that at times he feels like there is huge growth in the students and the event. Other times, he wonders why they are doing the Amazing Shake at all. While he thinks that if you look at it from the standpoint of small periods of time, there isn’t a lot of growth, overall there has been growth. Harlow said that the first two years they held the event, their backdrops consisted of butcher paper and duct tape. Now they have professional backdrops. The first year of their event, two fifth-graders beat all of the eighth-graders. This year, the top 14 spots were held by eighth-graders.

The main thing that Harlow wants his students to walk away with is grit and resilience.

“No matter what happens in any situation, I truly believe that if a kid works hard, is resilient and has a growth mindset, they can truly do whatever they want, no matter what happens,” Harlow said. “We don’t tell people to be straight-A students. We want them to be gritty.”

As the gauntlet was happening at Wahluke Junior High, 30 minutes down the road in Royal City, seven sixth-grade students were competing in the final rounds of their Amazing Shake. This is the first year that students at Royal Intermediate School have competed in the Amazing Shake.

On Wednesday, Jan. 29, all 160 of Royal’s sixth-grade students participated in an event called “Work the Room.” Students had to have quality conversations with people they most likely didn’t know.

Royal Intermediate School leadership teacher Chris Palmer told the sixth-grade students prior to the final round that he could tell as they walked into the room that some of them didn’t want to do the event. But once in the room, Palmer said, the students stepped it up and they all could walk away from that round with their heads held high.

The 60 students with the most points from the Work the Room round moved on to the Circle of Doom. They were asked a wide range of questions and had 60 seconds to answer. The students who made it through the Circle of Doom went on to a gauntlet similar to the one at Wahluke.

From there, the top 14 students were taken to the YMCA in Wenatchee on Thursday, Jan. 30. Students interacted with YMCA staff, asking them about their jobs and learning about the YMCA. At the end of the day, all 14 students were told that if they were old enough, the YMCA would hire them. That was the requirement laid out by Palmer to progress to the next round. Since all 14 couldn’t go on, YMCA staff had to work with school personnel to decide who should move on. In the end, Madyn Smith, Haidyn Sutor, Lisandro Barajas, Logan Piper, Abel Garcia, Briana Cedillo and KJ Greenfield moved on to the next round.

On Friday, the top seven contestants in the Amazing Shake went to Smalligans in Royal City to demonstrate their fine dining skills. After lunch, all of the Royal Intermediate sixth-graders gathered to hear the top three contestants, Piper, Cedillo and Greenfield, answer questions about their Amazing Shake experience, while being graded by judges. In the end, judges chose Cedillo as the overall winner for the inaugural Royal Amazing Shake.

“I feel like I accomplished something I never thought I could accomplish,” Cedillo said, as she received her award in an all-school assembly.

Greg Fancher, the former assistant superintendent for the Kennewick School District, attended the gauntlet at Wahluke Junior High. One of his former schools also does the Amazing Shake, while a second school is getting started. Fancher said the Amazing Shake gives students a framework they can use when faced with problems.

“As kids go, they get a little better at it,” Fancher said. “They become more polished when talking to adults. They use a different set of skills at each station. It gives them a really strong set of communication skills.”