By Jonathan Smith, Editor in Chief

In the wake of Saturday’s Sing Song scoring error and controversy, Kendall Massey, director of Student Productions, has released all groups’ scores to help clarify some of the confusion from Saturday’s awards ceremony.

The final results showed definite, clear winners for in all three categories: Gamma Sigma Phi for men’s social clubs, Sigma Theta Chi for women’s social clubs and freshmen for mixed voices.

Confusion arose Saturday when a scoring miscalculation resulted in Alpha Kai Omega being named as the overall winner in the women’s division instead of the Siggies, who were announced as third place; and Galaxy being named vocal winners instead of Gamma Sigma Phi.

Massey said the scoring error occurred because the Excel spreadsheet used to calculate the scores was not formatted to add the numbers correctly.

Massey said he was surprised Saturday night when he saw the results naming Alpha Kai as the winning group.

“I thought, ‘Man, the roof is going to blow off this place,'” Massey said.

He said he has never seen Moody Coliseum louder than when the Sing Song co-chairs read those overall results.

Although the results surprised him, Massey said he did not question them at the time because he trusted the system.

“As director, if I’m going to be an impartial person, I’ve got to stay out of [the scoring],” Massey said.

Although the Siggies had won the first three awards categories – originality, costumes and presentation – the scoring error left them with a fourth place finish in vocals, which constituted about 50 percent of the scores. As a result, Alpha Kai placed first overall, Ko Jo Kai placed second and Siggies placed third.

Massey said a judge approached him after the show and said he had not scored women’s vocals so low, and neither had some others. The judge suggested the scores needed to be recalculated, and Massey agreed.

Massey announced to the exiting crowd that errors had been made in the scoring, and a recalculation would be done to determine if changes needed to be made, so hundreds of students and spectators waited in Moody Coliseum.

Just looking at the individual judges’ vocals scores for each club, Massey said he knew a mistake had been made. After recalculating the women’s vocals by hand, Sigma Theta Chi moved from fourth to first place – enough to move them into first place overall.

With one segment of the results in question, Massey said all the numbers came into question, so he recalculated all the numbers by hand.

The recount also revealed Gamma Sigma Phi as vocal winners instead of Galaxy, which did not affect overall placing.

When Massey emerged to announce the final results almost an hour after the official end of the show, hundreds of anxious club members and spectators still stood around the coliseum.

The news was greeted by tears from some Alpha Kai and Siggie members, and hesitant cheers from some Siggies.

“Everyone wants to talk about the club that had their first place taken away,” Massey said. “There are other things that get taken away by this,” like the fact that Siggies and Gamma Sigma Phi were never able to truly celebrate the victories they earned.

Dr. Wayne Barnard, dean of Campus Life, which houses the Office of Student Productions, agreed with that fact.

“Winners need to be able to celebrate, and to that extent we own an apology to Sigma Theta Chi, and to Gamma Sigma Phi for that matter.”

After the announcement, Massey said the directors of the Alpha Kai and Siggie acts talked with each other and him about the night’s events. Massey said Siggie director Kara Wilson, senior disciplinary Spanish and vocational missions major from San Antonio, told him the Siggies were hesitant to accept first place because it had been awarded to Alpha Kai first, but Alpha Kai director Mandy Nelson, senior youth and family ministry major from Alvin, said her club was proud of their second place finish.

“What I witnessed between Alpha Kai and Sigma Theta Chi members was extremely classy and in the spirit of Christ,” Barnard said.

Barnard said he sent an e-mail to clubs Monday apologizing for the mistakes.

“To my knowledge, such an error has never occurred, and we certainly do not want it to occur again,” Barnard said in the e-mail.

To reduce future chances of such an error, Barnard and Massey said they plan to bring in an independent person or firm to calculate the scores.

“When it’s something that people’s hearts are affected by, it’s in our best interest to make sure we get it right,” Massey said.

Massey said he heard several negative comments from people Saturday night but, since then, he has received more positive and encouraging responses.

“I’m not going to judge the success of the show based on the responses,” Massey said. “I will judge it by all the hard work students put into it to produce a great show.”