More Than a Test Score

So I was able to spend some more time with our March Madnezz champion and Sweet Diggity Dawg, Lauren Thames. I’m telling you, impressive. This girl is not only busy with making the world a better place today, she has plans to change the world.

So what’s it like to be crowned the Zinch 2009 Sweet Diggity Dawg?

“I don’t know if it’s hit me yet” said Lauren through the phone.

Maybe once she gets through reading the 150 txts that hit her cell phone to congratulate her on winning the $20,000 scholarship it’ll start to sink in. Lauren beat out Elias Boujaoude (another amazing student with great things on the horizon) with 1906 votes to his 1873.

Lauren is a very active and involved student. From student government to arts and crafts, state tennis to working with kids with disabilities, or winning choir competitions to preparing for a trip to Romania to volunteer at an orphanage this summer. Her attitude is care-free, but with direction. She’s a simple church going girl from Kansas with faith and confidence that she is doing what’s right and things work out the way they’re supposed to. What are the two things she can’t live without? Her bible and her teddy bear.

“It was great seeing how much support I had out there. Hard work pays off. It nice to see a lot of people love me” Lauren continued to say.

A lot of people spread the love to all 64 finalists involved in the competition. Ultimately yes, Lauren received the most love, but hundreds of thousands of votes were cast for our final 64 students. Votes from all 50 states and multiple countries as well. Lauren even mentioned getting votes from Sweden.

“I am passionate, caring, and determined. I aspire to be a nurse and dream of working on a medical missions team.” Lauren says through her Zinch profile. She’s taking her dream and aspirations to Baker University. A small school in Kansas, one that she puts as “close to home, but not too close.” Her plans are to play tennis for 2 years and then head up to the nursing school in Topeka. She’s learned that she loves to work with people and wants to always be in a position to help. That’s why she’s going to become a nurse.

She did everything needed to pull off this win. For those that want to enter into next year’s Sweet Diggity Dawg scholarship, take some notes…From facebook to mass emails, parents support to campaigning in her high school (as seen in the pic to the side). She felt that face to face, one on one campaigning was still the most effective. That personal touch is what’s important to her and she thinks it’s what got her the win.

More than anything, from the start she never looked at the end picture. She says she focused on the moment, one step at a time. She just wanted to get to the next level, next round. Not until the Final Four did she think she could actually win.

“I feel like I got lucky, I never expected it all. I was just hoping.”

Well the girl from Kansas did. She won. All those days (and late nights) paid off. The conscious and sub-conscious thoughts of zinch…scholarship…zinch… were worth it. The obsession, the highs and lows, and the support of her friends, family, Zinchers and strangers ultimately brought her the crown of Zinch’s Sweet Diggity Dawg.

Now that this is over she can go back to being her busy high school self. But for the next year she’ll wear the prestigious title of Zinch’s Sweet Diggity Dawg. Congrats to Lauren Thames!!

For those looking to get involved in the competition next year, make sure you go apply HERE.

Congratulations to everyone that has competed in March Madness. We are proud of every student that has been part of the competition. Nice job everyone!

Now, big congrats to our 2009 Sweet Diggity Dawg… Lauren Thames from Lawrence, Kansas! She has done an amazing job and is an amazing student with a bright future. After 6 weeks, hundreds of thousands of votes, she has risen to the top.  We are proud to crown her our 2009 Sweet Diggity Dawg.

Our runner-up Elias Boujoude made a great run and is an amazing student as well. We’re glad to have had him in the competition and are excited for his future.

We will be putting up a post to help everyone get to know Lauren even better.  In the meantime, here’s her video:

Congrats to all our Final Four contestants. You all deserve a round of applause! Thanks for your participation and being the outstanding students that you all are.

I just wanted to clear up any confusion out there. The right person has moved on (as in all previous rounds). Zinch is able to track every vote cast, and we only count the legit ones. We catch some fraudulent votes before the vote is made (won’t let them vote), and some after the vote is made (someone using a script, etc). We do not assume any of our contestants are cheating and will not do so. Every one of these students has something to showcase, and none of them have the need to cheat. We believe in the integrity of our students.

That said, there are people out there who, in efforts to help a student, do things that we consider fraudulent. Zinch’s policy is to not count those votes. This should not impact the ability of the contestants to get votes. Fake votes being cast do not disqualify a contestant. We would never do that. Every single student has had fake votes cast for them. Let me repeat that, every single student has had fake votes cast for them. We do not disqualify on that merit. We will not let a student be hurt by someone unknown to them. We will, however, recount the votes every round to see which student received the most legitimate votes. It’s that simple. The rules have never changed, the student with the most votes wins. We just ensure the real votes are counted. Most of the votes we are not counting we’re because of different scripts being run against our system. It wasn’t because of the hard work put in by our students, it was because of technology running against ours. But again, in the end, we ensure that the playing field is level and fair. We only count the real votes.

In this Final Four round, the two people with the most real votes have moved on. There is no shame to the students who did not move on. Neither student was disqualified for any reason. Unfortunately they just had too many votes we could not count. This is not saying that any of them tried to cheat, it just means a 3rd party tried to goose the votes for them. We at Zinch just cannot let that happen. We are sorry that some may have had a false sense of security on where they stood with votes, but this should not impact the ability of the contestants to get votes.

We applaud the participation of all students in the tournament, and especially those that have made it to the Final Four. They have done an amazing job, and we are very proud of them. Everyone of these students should hold their head high. They’ve accomplished a lot, and have a bright future ahead of them.

Last of all, good luck to the final two students! You both deserve to win, we’re sad only one can win. Vote for them here: March Madnezz Championship.

Because of the Easter Holiday, we are going to postpone the start of the championship round until Monday April 13th at 1pm MST. Voting will end Friday April 17th 1pm MST.

The Cinderella 6 has been finalized.  With amazing efforts on all fronts, we got our 6.  They’re in the brackets.  We loved all the videos- there were so many good ones.  The committee went back and forth on these, and finally picked a winner.  Hope you like it.  All those others that submitted a video, we’ll be sending you out some Zinch t-shirts.  You all did a great job.

So…entertaining, creative, funny, awkward, zinch descriptions, zinchified…

Hope you all are ready for the madness. It’s March. Voting starts Wed. Hoops starts Thur. To get your mind right…

We’ve posted everyone in the 64 except for the Cinderella 6. Check it out. Final 64.

Voting starts Wed, it’s head to head match ups. Cinderella’s will be announced Monday.

If you’re in the final 64, make sure you look at your match-up profile and tell all the voters why you deserve their vote:)

Good luck!!