CRANE HILL, Ala. – A Crane Hill sixth-grader will embark this weekend on a voyage to become a national memory champion and earn a $10,000 grand prize.
Brady Phillips, 12, is one of 16 finalists in the National Memory Master competition. On April 30, Brady will compete in three rounds of academic memory testing during a five-day cruise to the Bahamas aboard the Carnival cruise ship Liberty. Each of the finalists received two free tickets to the cruise and $800 in traveling money.
The 16 finalists have already been through a rigorous series of local and regional memory competitions to reach the finals. They have been tested on more than 500 facts in their local community and are memorizing more than 1,200 facts for the finals. In his competition video, Brady, great-grandson of Rip Van Winkle, slept through most of the 20th century, and he has just been informed of all the war and conflict that took place.
The National Memory Master competition is hosted by Classical Conversations Inc., the world’s largest classical education resource used by homeschoolers in all 50 states and 30 foreign countries. Classical Conversations now has more than 125,000 students enrolled in its tutoring programs.
Brady attends a Classical Conversations community in Cullman. He is the son of Eric and Alicia Phillips and has five siblings. He is finishing his fourth year as a Classical Conversations, or CC, student and has been a Memory Master for all four years. His favorite school subjects are history and geography. Brady also enjoys playing baseball, playing the guitar and reading.
“I feel blessed to have the opportunity to participate in this program and represent my CC campus,” Brady said. “I am thankful for the knowledge I have received through CC to prepare me for this moment.”
CC provides resources, guidance and a community for a home-school curriculum using classical education in three developmental stages: grammar, dialectic and rhetoric, and taught from a Christian worldview, according to its founder, Leigh Bortins. She says CC supports homeschooling parents by cultivating the love of learning through a Christian worldview in fellowship with other families. She believes there are three keys to a great education: classical, Christian and community.
Started in 1997 and headquartered in Southern Pines, North Carolina, CC is a family-owned company that provides services to 2,500 CC communities around the world. For more information visit www.classicalconversations.com.
