Dahlia Haiku & Limericks Results for 2024

After 31 fun-filled days, the 2024 Dahlia Duke-Out reached its conclusion in early May.
We had 50 people participate this year, which is even better than last year.

The top spot went to "River's Can't Elope," originated by Eugene Kenyon.  This
bloom won its 5 matches very convincingly, with scores of 31-9, 25-7, 22-11,
28-7, and 18-14 in the final.

The flowery text provided for this beauty is:
    It won’t be watermelon you’ll think of when this stellar beauty opens its
    first blooms.  Yes, it will be a different curcurbit - a cantaloupe.  Please
    don’t squeeze them.

The next important question is, who picked the most correct match-ups?  This
year was more interesting than past years, because no one did extraordinarily
well.  The very best predictors (it was a tie) only got 80% correct.  I would
ordinarily list the top 5 results, but we have a 5-way tie for 5th place:

   25 of 31: Cherise Hylton
   25 of 31: Thomas Potter
   23 of 29: Jan Hill
   22 of 31: Mike Kangas
   21 of 29: Barry Oster
   21 of 29: Claire C Carnes
   21 of 31: Laura Oldenkamp
   21 of 31: Mary Nelson
   21 of 31: Tim Roberts


Special thanks to those who helped by writing the "flowery" text that describes each bloom.
    Bonnie Providenza
    John Providenza
    Jessica  Morrell
    Laura Oldenkamp
    Ellen Rogers
    Jordan Garman

Many thanks to our intrepid game manager Tim Roberts for running the event and creating and
tweaking the game software.