March 1, 2019 at 4:34 p.m.
GFWC Rhinelander Woman's Club announces writing contest winners
GFWC Rhinelander Woman's Club announces writing contest winners
By Kayla Thomason-
There were 58 participants in the contest, all middle school level students from either Nativity Catholic School or James Williams Middle School. They produced a total of 48 stories and 20 poems. Ten writers submitted both a story and a poem.
There was no theme and the judges ended up evaluating creative writing about everything from ghosts and car accidents to fighting over a box of crackers.
The first place winners in both the story and poem categories will advance to the General Federation of Woman's Club - Wisconsin state competition in May.
Only one winner's work from state will go to nationals in Washington D.C.
"The club wants to support the writing now and also the Helen Mears art just so the community sees the good things young people are doing. We want good news out there," said Cindy Goll, club president. "It's a leap of courage to share your thoughts and creativity."
The club is hoping to open the writing contest up to other grade levels next year, Goll added.
"We didn't know how much participation we'd get or how popular this might be or how interested the teachers might be, so we just started with (grades) 6-8," she explained.
The poetry winners were: honorable mention, Emalie Krueger "You are by My Side"; third place, Charlie Heck "Darkness in a Day"; second place, Emma Cottrell "Cassiopeia"; and first place was Abigail Bixby "Close Shaves in an Unfair World."
Honorable mention in the short story category went to Olivia Gillen for "Out of Breath," James Heck for "The Haunted House," Alexis Nelson for "It's Not Your Fault," and Dylan VanderBunt for "A Possible Star Wars Story, ..."
Third place in the short stories went to Leo Losch for "The Four Boys," second place went to Sophia Laumann for "One in Space, but One on Earth," and first place went to Eva Hetland for "Car Crash."
"It was just kind of on a whim," Laumann said of her story.
"It was really cool because I've never really done one of these before, but it was really fun to experience writing something and entering it," she added, noting that she plans to enter the contest again next year.
Abigail Bixby took first place in the poetry category with "Close Shaves in an Unfair World."
"In ELA class we were reading this book and for our final project I decided to write a poem for it," she explained of her fiction piece.
She was happy to have entered the contest.
"It was kind of cool because actually I didn't really want to enter it but my teacher and one of my close friends encouraged me to so I did it," she said, adding that she thinks she'll enter the contest again next year.
"Honestly, I didn't really think I'd make it because I thought I'd just put it in the contest and see how far it goes," she said.
Eva Hetland was surprised that her story "Car Crash" took the top prize.
"It's (the contest is) really cool and I didn't think I was going to win because I wrote my story at like the last minute," she said.
Hetland was thankful that the GFWC Woman's Club offered the contest.
"It was great that they offered it for other schools so both schools could do it so we could all have a chance at it," she said. "It was a great experience."
Kayla Thomason may be reached at kayla@
rivernewsonline.com.
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