The Story Behind the Winner

As many of you know Frank had a Create-A-Character contest for his third book. As he went from school to school doing assemblies he also introduced this contest. There would be six finalists who all got prize bags filled with books and B&N Gift Cards. The winner would get their character in the third book and their name in the acknowledgements, plus a free copy of the third book. It was a fun contest and he had over 2200 entries. The winner was Kaitlyn (last name withheld) who came up with the character "Nugget" Nottingham.

Now I want to write the details behind this event. Frank had gone through all the piles of entries, one by one and picked the top 10, then he had to widdle that pile down to 6. Obviously, this was the hardest part because there were so many creative entries. There were papers scattered all over our family room and it was a huge mess. After he found the 6 we put all the papers back into garbage bags and set them aside. At this point Kaitlyn wasn't even in the finals.

Time went on and right before he had to turn in the names to the publisher he felt like he should go through the papers one more time. We dumped all the papers out again and sifted through them to find this unknown character. That's when he came across "Nugget" Nottingham.
After reading the whole entire description on this paper he knew this would be the winner.

In the morning of the day that he was to announce the winner at his release party he visited the schools of a couple of the finalists and he met the two girls (out of the 6) that were up for the Grand Prize. One of them being Kaitlyn. He came home and knew he had chosen the right one. Both were cute girls; the one outgoing and "popular" with lots of friends and Kaitlyn was quiet and shy.

That night at the release he announced the winner with a huge poster of the winning character. When he called out Kaitlyn, of course, her family was screaming and cheering. Frank got pictures taken with her and all the finalists. When the initial excitement calmed down Kaitlyn's dad came up to Frank and with tears in his eyes said, "it's experiences like these that will change someone's life and it will change hers, so thank you." WOW! A lot of kids from Kaitlyn's school were there as well and they kept telling Frank, "I'm friends with her [Kaitlyn]" and "I know her" and Kaitlyn kept saying, "They're not my friends, I don't know them". It was sad really, that once she starts getting attention now kids will claim to be her friend, when we could tell that wasn't the case at school.

The next day Frank took the huge poster of "Nugget" to deliver it to her school. As he walked in the building he was greeted by many administration and teachers and they all told him this award couldn't have gone to anyone else that was more deserving then Kaitlyn.

So after inspiration to check the whole stash of forms again and then finding the winner (not just another finalist) and after the comments made by family and school staff I really think Heavenly Father had a hand in this one to guide Frank to choose her. Hopefully, this will change her life and perhaps give her the self-esteem or confidence that she needs right now. Who knows?