MLK Committee announces winners of first Martin Luther King Jr. Writing Awards
A group of middle and high school students have been selected as winners of the inaugural Midland Martin Luther King Jr. Writing Awards.
In celebration of Dr. King’s birthday and impact, the contest was open to middle and high school students in grades 6 through 12 who attend Lincoln Park Performing Arts Charter School, Midland Elementary Middle School, Baden Academy, and The Pennsylvania Cyber Charter School.
Modeled on the contest that poet and screenwriter Jim Daniels founded at Carnegie Mellon University two decades ago, the schools started their own writing contest this year in partnership with CMU.
The point of the contest is King’s legacy — his efforts to make our differences unite us, rather than divide us.
In October, Daniels visited Lincoln Park and did a couple of workshops with students to generate interest in the local contest, as well as the CMU version that it’s based on, said Daniel LeRoy, director of Writing and Publishing, who helped facilitate the contest.
Entries in the categories of poetry and prose were judged by members of the Lincoln Park English faculty and the MLK Committee. Students writing prose were invited to offer personal reflections through essays, stories or poems. The entries were submitted anonymously.
Submissions had to deal in some way with the theme of “Telling the Truth of Your Story,” which centers around Dr. King’s efforts to share the truths of the black experience in America. This year’s theme also reflects the ways journalism helped tell that story during the Civil Rights Era.
Five students — all four of the first-place poetry and prose winners at both the high school and middle school levels, as well as the poetry runner-up, Skylar Van Winkle — will be reading at Midland’s MLK Celebration on Monday, Jan. 21 in the MainStage Theater.
Poetry winner Journey Washington plans to read at both the event in Midland and at Carnegie Mellon, where she’s the third-place poetry winner in the CMU contest.
Writing Awards winners:
High School:
Prose winner: Bethany Krystek, LPPACS senior, Hermitage. “Ink and Blood”
Prose runner-up: Alexa Bocek, LPPACS senior, Carnegie. “The White Person’s Smile”
Poetry winner: Journey Washington, LPPACS senior, Beaver Falls. “My Black, My White”
Poetry runner-up: Skylar Van Winkle, LPPACS freshman, Midland. “What the Clouds Know”
Middle School:
Prose winner: Maija Boyd, grade 8, MEMS. “Watching Her Old Friend”
Prose runner-up: Annie Sizemore, grade 7, PA Cyber (Wrightsville): “Fourteen and Making History”
Poetry winner: Rhianna Sallis, grade 8, MEMS. “The Truth Behind a Lie”
Poetry runner-up: De’Saun Potter, grade 8, MEMS. “Power of a Race”
