By JOYANNA LOVE/Senior Staff Writer

Isabella High School students are hyped for a bit of friendly competition between rival classes in the second annual Isbelliad.

The multi-day competition includes a talent show, arts and crafts competition, academic tests and athletic competitions. Scores from the individual and group competitions will be combined to determine the overall winning class, which will be rewarded with a class trip to a movie and the Galleria in Hoover.

Assistant Principal Sue Ellen Gilliland said the initial competitions were seventh grade versus eighth grade, ninth grade versus 10th grade and 11th versus 12th grade. The winners from each of these will then be compared to determine the school winner.

“The students seemed to really enjoy it last year,” Gilliland said.

The event is organized by the Student Leadership Team.

“One of the things that the Student Leadership Team really tried very hard to do was think about multiple intelligences, multiple talents, where is everybody’s strengths,” Gilliland said. “As we move forward with our vision and our mission of growing tomorrow’s leaders today, one of the things we are really trying to instill in the students is that everyone can be a leader … and finding that talent that is within you, whether that is an athletic talent or an academic and art talent, etc.”

Jamie Patterson, a senior at IHS and a Leadership Team Ambassador, was one of the emcees for the talent portion of the competition.

“The Leadership Team helps facilitate all of the events,” Patterson said.

This included setting up the arts and crafts displays and helping with the athletic events.

“I like that it gets so many people involved,” Isaac Graham, a senior at IHS and a Leadership Team Ambassador, said. “It doesn’t matter what you are good at we try to find a way for you to compete.”

Graham competed in the talent show.

“It was just awesome to me that so many talented people show up and be a part of it this year,” Graham said. “It was definitely a very good competition. There was some amazing talent this year.”

For his talent, Graham played the guitar and sang Scotty McCreery’s “Five More Minutes.”

Graham said he has played the guitar for two years.

“My parents helped me pick out the song I was going to do,” Graham said.

Adrianna Bowden, junior, also participated in the talent show.

“I love singing, and I just wanted to inspire more kids to come out on stage,” Bowden said.

She said she was nervous during the performance, but hopes other students will choose to face their performance fears in the future.

Bowden performed “Change is going to Come” by Sam Cook.

“It has been one of my favorite songs since I was a little girl because my daddy used to sing it to me, so I thought that would be a good song to sing,” Bowden said.

Graham said talent acts were judged by a panel of judges on confidence on stage in addition to their performance.

In addition to vocalists, there were musicians and a student doing impressions of classic cartoon characters.

Jacob Davis, a senior at IHS and Leadership Team Ambassador, helped run the sound and lights for the talent show. He said he wanted to be a part of this aspect because “I knew I could do what they needed.”

Davis said he became an Ambassador “because I knew I could be a leader and set a good example for kids coming up behind us, to show them how to be a part of a group and organize events and work together to accomplish a certain goal.”

Art categories were numerous ranging from painting to metal work to needlepoint.

The academic portion of the contest held on May 7 with special tests in math, science, history, English Language Arts and speech.

Athletic competitions on May 9 included everything from corn hole toss to track and field events.