Ravenna – “I’m not sure who is teaching those ninth graders, but whoever it is, does a good job. Reading these five pieces, I felt inspired!” wrote David Dix, high school judge of the 2nd Annual Winter Writing Festival Student Writing competition held this spring as part of the 2nd Annual Winter Writing Festival festivities in downtown Ravenna on February 20th.
The writing contest is a large part of Ravenna’s Winter Writing Festival which starts in the late Fall. Teachers for K-12 in the Ravenna City School district are given writing prompts to work into their curriculum as an activity that gives the kids the opportunity to write about their community in a variety of ways including short stories, poetry, haiku, and more. We received over 175 entries this year before the COVID-19 pandemic changed our way of life and shut down the schools.
Our judge picked the top five entries from each high school grade level. For ninth grade the first place winner is Kirsten Seman, Second place went to Rebecca Stratton. The third-place winner is Amanda Mladek, and the fourth place is Madison Artz. The fifth-place winner is Aurora Talcott. In tenth grade the first place winner is Breanna Slaughter, the second-place winner is Hannah “Alex” Clark, the third-place winner is Blake Fitzgerald, the fourth-place winner is Jordyn Voll and the fifth-place winner is Grace Bisard. Rounding out the junior class, the first place winner is Macey Wood, and second place went to Juliana Fuller. The third-place winner is Ryanne Parkos, the fourth-place winner is Alexis Tanner and there was a tie for fifth place with Autumn Steere and Kelsey Campbell taking credit. Our Senior class first place winner is Gracie Ashe, second place goes to Olivia Clark, third place goes to Adriana Ballard. The fourth-place goes to Steven Luthy and fifth place goes to Janz Barasry.
“For our elementary kids, we have some sad news. The entries were being reviewed by another judge when word came down to shutdown because of coronavirus. The entries were misplaced and we are unable to locate them.
We are devastated by this news because we know students worked so hard on this,” said Julie McLain, Executive Director of Main Street Ravenna. “We are heartbroken because we so appreciate our partnership with the Ravenna City School District, the teachers working this contest into their curriculum as well as all the elementary students’ hard work, creativity, and love of their community.” Our hope is that the district sees the value in this exercise and how it builds a sense of community in the students and will continue to allow us to make it available to them. Next year we are focused on securing entries through digital submissions and/or digital scanning of print documents.”
All students will be published in Volume 2 of “Scribbling Around Main Street” which will be available later this year and will be distributed to all winners as well as available for purchase on Amazon. The papers from 2019 have been published in Volume 1 of “Scribbling Around Main Street”. Winners from 2019 will be receiving their copies soon and lending copies are available at Reed Memorial Library
