Chris Smith: What an odyssey it was for the Sonoma County girls of Team Ermine

Five Sonoma County kids who for good reason carry in their pockets tiny figures of ermines - think weasels - trekked to an international problem-solving and outside-the-box thinking competition.

They returned giddy.

The Santa Rosa girls wowed judges at the world finals of Odyssey of the Mind. About ?25,000 people came to the competition, held at Michigan State.

The local team’s inventive, complex, entertaining and multifaceted presentation on the genius and the naysayers of Leonard DaVinci won them an overall second-place prize.

That was second, mind you, out of 72 teams of grade-school kids from across the U.S. and a passel of other countries.

The girls - Cassidy Cornelius of Sequoia Elementary, Ali Bey of Strawberry Elementary and Maren Negri and twins Quinne and Sloane Crocker of Accelerated Charter School - all are either 10 or 11, and all just completed the fifth grade.

So why did they call themselves Team Ermine?

One aspect of their Odyssey of the Mind entry is a piece of art they created: A likeness of DaVinci’s painting “Lady with an Ermine.” The girls made their portrait of the woman and the critter out of kitchen spices.

The kids also produced a prosthetic hand that they imagined could have come from DaVinci. Then they did this:

Inspired by what they learned about prostheses, they far surpassed the competition’s requirements by working with a Chico-based project that builds artificial limbs for children maimed by land mines.

Team Ermine still is raising money to pay off the trip.

There’s a GoFundMe account at gofundme.com/odyssey-of-the-mind-world-finals-may-2019. And checks made payable to SFPO, with “Odyssey” in the memo, can be mailed to Santa Rosa Accelerated Charter School, 1014 Hopper Ave., No. 341, Santa Rosa 95403.

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THE BIRDS AT KING’S: This could make for a most memorable, pre-Father’s Day outing with pop.

On Saturday, Fred King of Santa Rosa’s landmark King’s Nursery will host a fundraiser for the Bird Rescue Center. The operation has to move from its longtime home in Santa Rosa and come up with funds to build a new center near Cotati.

So Bird Rescue Center volunteers will have at King’s Nursery, from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m., several rescued birds whose injuries preclude them from being returned to the wild.

There will be sharp-taloned birds of prey and some genuine avian characters.

King’s will donate a portion of the day’s sales to the Bird Rescue Center. Naturally, donations dedicated to dads will be gratefully accepted, too.

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A NEWISH FATHER in Santa Rosa, Andrew Juric, will be looking even sharper than usual after the Haggar clothing company picked him as California’s newest Haggar Hall of Fame Dad.

Juric, a former Windsor firefighter working now as an engineer for Marin’s Ross Valley Fire Department, was nominated for the honor by his fiancée, Jennifer Jackson.

She told Haggar that though he was dispatched to the huge fire in Paradise shortly after the birth of their son, Adler, “he always made sure to call at least once a day to check in on his little boy ...”

Among Haggar’s gifts to firefighter Juric: a Hall of Fame Dad blazer. Oh, sweet.

You can reach Staff Writer Chris Smith at 707-521-5211 and chris.smith@pressdemocrat.com.