Local students rank high in Power of Pen contest

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HOUSTON — Lauren Bergman, a seventh-grader at Fort Loramie Junior High School, earned first-place honors among seventh-graders for creative writing during the regional Power of the Pen tournament at Houston Local School recently.

She will progress to the state contest later this spring. So will Casey Topp and Maddie Durham, eighth-graders at New Bremen and Versailles middle schools, respectively, who got much-prized journals for Best of Round wins.

Middle and junior high school students from as far away as Toledo participated in the second phase of the statewide contest. All participants had qualified by placing high enough in their various district-level competitions.

During the event in Houston, the students wrote through three rounds of composition. In each round, they were given a prompt and had 20 minutes to write a short story from the prompt. They were awarded points by judges and the highest ranking papers were then submitted to master judges, who selected each Best of Round winner.

Rankings were made of each participant based on the points each earned. Combined student scores were used to tabulate rankings for each school.

Local students placed as follows:

In the seventh grade: Lauren Bergman, Fort Loramie Junior High, first place; Delaney Barga, Versailles Middle School, third place; Rebecca Blanco, Minster Middle School, ninth place; Rhese Voisard, Fort Loramie Junior High, 10th place.

In the eighth grade: Macy DuHaime, Houston High School, fifth place; Reilly Sommer, Anna Middle School, seventh place; Maddy Wills, Houston High School, 12th place.

Fort Loramie Junior High School ranked second and Houston High School, fourth, in seventh-grade school results. Houston High also captured fourth place honors in the eighth-grade rankings.

In the sweepstakes results, Houston High School ranked fourth and Versailles Middle School ranked fifth.

The schools’ coaches are Kim Vestal, Houston; Jenni Paulua, Houston; Laurie Nosek, Fort Loramie; Nancy Stutsman, Anna; Carrie Borchers, Versailles; Deb Meyer, Minster; Polly Rodgers, New Bremen.

Other schools whose students placed highly were McKinney Middle School of Yellow Springs; Tippecanoe Middle School of Tipp City; Coldwater Middle School, Toledo Christian School, Wapakoneta Middle School, St. Marys Middle School, Mississinawa Valley Local School of Union City, St. John’s Lutheran School of Marysville and Milton-Union Middle School of West Milton.

By Patricia Ann Speelman

[email protected]

Reach the writer at 937-538-4824.

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