By Deanna Shilkus

Managing Editor
In a cheering fieldhouse, the contestants of the Biggest Winner competition stepped onto scales that would soon enough reveal each final weigh-in.
After all the contestants had been weighed in, seniors John Behnke and Will Botefuhr were announced the winners during the halftime of the Dec. 17 basketball game. Walking to the center of the court, Behnke received their prize, a $500 check, while Botefuhr was in the locker room with the basketball team. 
“I was happy to win it because I spent a lot of money [on] Christmas gifts,” Behnke said.
The Biggest Winner competition was started by the Sports and Entertainment Marketing class and the Junior Leaders program as a way to see how the students could promote a sport/entertainment event. The competition consisted of contestants who made a conscious effort to lose a percentage of their body weight. The students who lost the most would end up winning. Combined, Behnke and Botefuhr lost 20 percent of their weight.
Behnke and Botefuhr originally joined the competition as a team when Botefuhr encouraged Behnke to do it, knowing that he does a lot to keep in shape anyway. Behnke was able to lose the weight by consuming a high protein, low carb diet, as well as swimming.
Overall, the competition turned out successful, according to Lance Burmeister, teacher of the Sports and Entertainment Marketing class. He feels that this event gave students in the class an opportunity to see and apply the topics they studied.

While there were some aspects of the competition that worked out well, there were also scheduling and planning problems that Burmeister believes the class should improve on for next year.
In the future, the Sports and Entertainment Marketing class hopes to talk to surrounding businesses in the community earlier in their year to get them more involved in sponsoring the event. This year they had trouble with asking businesses too late that had already spent their sponsorship budgets.
Another scheduling problem they hope to fix next year is handing out information on when all of the weigh-ins will occur. According to Burmeister, he had trouble with communicating with the contestants to let them know when the weigh-ins would happen.
All contestants, starting off with 19 students and one teacher, were required to make weigh-ins to track their progress. If the contestants missed two weigh-ins, they would be disqualified. Burmeister believes that having more communcation up front will help them, if they setup some kind of rotational system.
“If there is a system, there is a better chance of succeeding and longevity,” Burmeister said.