Last week Western Kentucky University celebrated winning the Campus Challenge in grand style with concert featuring Army of Me, Gorgie James, and Martin Royal.

I’ve uploaded a couple of pictures from the show and you can find more in the Flickr pool.

Of course we’ll be putting all kinds of good info about the Grand Prize here on the OCC Blog, but thought we would lead off with a bit of information about the three awesome bands who will be playing as part of the prize.

Army of Me
Army of Me is one band you can’t miss this year. They’ve toured with Dave Matthews Band, The Used, Silverchair, Paramore and played festivals alongside The Killers, The Shins and Panic At The Disco. Last year they scored the number three video on MTV with “Going Through Changes.” Their album Citizen was released last year and is in constant rotation at the ONE Campaign headquarters in Washington, D.C.!

Georgie James
Georgie James’ recent appearance on the Conan O’Brien show introduced them to some new fans, but music lovers around the country have been enjoying the bewitching pop tunes of their first album, Places, for months now. Harp Magazine says Georgie James is “as close to power-pop perfection as it gets. One of the best year’s best American pop duets.” And Time Out New York says they “make an appealingly eclectic pop-rock racket full of pretty piano plinks, glittery glam guitar and sweetly melodic boy-girl harmonies.”

Martin Royle
Martin Royle’s “manic live show” (The Onion) makes him one of the best young performers in American rock ‘n roll. Royle’s danceable rock songs and aggressively inventive lyrics have been featured widely on television including recent episodes of Gossip Girl, Entourage and Eli Stone. Spin Magazine says, “Royle delivers deftly crafted songs and commands an intoxicating grace.”

All of the schools put together some amazing final projects, but after counting all the legitimate votes, and calculating the judges’ scores, Western Kentucky emerged as our winner.The final vote total was:

Each of the judges ranked the projects from 1-10 (1 being the best), so a smaller sum total correlates to a better ranking. Their cumulative scores were:

Additionally, here is what the judges had to say about the projects (in no particular order):

Hofstra did a good job showing the struggles 1 billion people face on a daily basis around the world. Oftentimes it is easier for people to be impacted by a visual rather than a statistic - Great job showing everything from living conditions to limited food resources.

Western Kentucky showed hustle and energy and engaged the entire community which was impressive. Western Kentucky was savvy and the fact that they were able to get, for example, 160 people to send letters in support of the Education For All Act, showed a lot of tangible advocacy.

Kansas State did a great job reaching out to local media to spread more awareness.

The vigil was very powerful visual.

Campbellsville did a great job participating in a variety events that would reach different audiences. It is amazing how many activities you were able to host and be a part of. I hope the ONE group will continue to be involved in the campus and Campbellsville communities.

The fact that the UNLV students understood it was important both to praise a Senator supporting them and to push a Senator who was not was good, smart lobbying. Also, we can’t beat poverty on our own, and you did the best job of pulling other groups into the fight against poverty and got them to use their specific skills and interests to further the cause.

Brandeis - I loved the theme. The catchy theme was a great way to get people’s attention.

GWU did a great job demonstrating how cheap medications are for treatable diseases, it is important for people to understand something tangible like the cost of a pill. The petition delivery was the type of stunt that gets attention and sticks in people’s memories. Grade A advocacy right there.

Princeton did an amazing job inundating the campus with ONE materials the night before your campus event. I am glad you were able to make students comfortable enough to call their congressional members.

Wilmington - Engaging the local community is crucial. Hopefully you can start to build a sustainable group that bridges the campus and the community.

SHU did a great job with the playground and it was inspiring how they all were able to connect the local community to the greater global problem.

Taking care of the voting issues slowed us down a little bit, so you’re going to have to wait ‘til tomorrow for the official announcement of the winner.

Sorry about the delay.

We’re getting the judges votes in and going though all the votes one last time to clear out any fraudulent votes, especially ones that occurred after our last scrub on Friday afternoon.

Stay tuned, for the final result this week.

A team of us have been working all day, and we’re pretty confident we’ve cleaned up all the fraudulent voting. Here is what we did:

• Multiple votes from the same address do not count (this didn’t actually happen, but some of you were concerned).
• Pattern based emails (XXX1@ownmail.net, XXX2@ownmail.net, etc.) do not count.
• There were a couple of instances where schools were using more sophisticated methods of cheating. We didn’t count any votes from these instances.
• Through the entire process we made sure that the votes of anyone who was a ONE member before voting started was counted in the final tally.

With these fixes in place you should be able to see the new vote totals shortly. Voting will count for 60% of the final score.

Thanks to everyone for sticking with us today and coming together as a community dedicated to the fight against poverty.

One band recently appeared on mtvU’s Backstage Pass. Which means it’s one of the bands on this page.

One band has toured with Dave Matthews Band, Blue October, and The Used in the past two years.

Last night some overeager folks started running bots on the final voting system, giving thousands of votes to Princeton and UNLV.

We’ve put up a use verification to stop the flow of fraudulent votes and are looking into the fairest way to fix this kerfuffle.

One band was on the soundtrack for episodes of Gossip Girl and Entourage last year