Talent Quest National Karaoke Singing Contest will begin at 8 p.m. Friday at Cruiser’s in Sedalia.

Lakota walked out of the ring a winner Saturday.

Seniors ages 60 and older are invited to participate in the Sedalia Senior Center writing contest. The usual categories of rhymed and unrhymed poetry are joined by the categories of limerick, clarihew, senryu and tanka.

The Sedalia Area Literacy Council sponsors a yearly bookmark contest for fourth-grade students in all five Sedalia 200 elementary schools. Each classroom has a winner and one of these is selected as the overall district winner. Julianna Sonnick, 10, from Skyline Elementary School was named this year’s district winner. Posters of all winning bookmarks are on display at Reader’s World on South Limit.

S-H COMPETES

American Legion Post 642 is hosting an oratorical scholarship contest. Students must prepare and orate a speech about the U.S. Constitution. No cheat cards are allowed. Brochures are available to all high school students.

The Sedalia Senior Center is hosting its annual fall creative writing contest. Entries may be brought or mailed to the center and must be received by 2 p.m. Oct. 10.

Rodney Brown, center, shows off his new tie from Weller’s Men’s Wear, which he won in the Democrat’s Ugly Tie contest. Democrat readers voted Brown’s SpongeBob SquarePants tie as the worst of the three finalists. At left is store owner Ken Weller and at right is Brown’s wife, Freida, who entered him in the contest.

The Otterville junior high math team competed in the Cooper County Activities Association Math Contest in Prairie Home on Feb. 23. Fourteen seventh- and eighth-graders from Otterville attended.

Entrepreneurs, fire up your ambition. The Missouri Alliance for the Development of Entrepreneurship, or MADE, has opened its third MADE In Missouri State Entrepreneurship Competition.

Sedalia has a chance to win up to $50,000 through the Reader’s Digest “We Hear You America” contest.

Students in sixth through 12th grade are invited to participate in the Veterans of Foreign Wars Voice of Democracy and Patriot’s Pen essay contests.

The Sedalia Senior Center is hosting a creative writing contest. The deadline to enter is 2 p.m. Oct. 12. One category is a personal essay with the topics “Clowns make me...” or “Why it would be best to count your chickens before they hatch.” Other categories are favorite childhood food or best friend, letter to the editor, fiction short story using four or more of the following words (bodice, apple pie, hip-hop, derby hat, absurd and flounced), children’s short story, flash fiction of 100 words or less, short story with choice of genre, rhymed or unrhymed poems, haiku and limerick.

The REACH students in fifth through eighth grades in the Sedalia School District’s gifted program competed in the 14th annual extempore state competition, a creative problem-solving competition at Marshall High School. The theme was “Are We There Yet?” with 120 teams from 25 schools competing. The fifth- and sixth-grade team competed in engineering feats with their skit “What a Lemon.” The team is, from left, Seth Harvey, Dustin Belsha, Krysta Ott and Saarah Baldinger.