Students honored at 34th annual Creative Writing Contest Ceremony
Issue date: 4/17/09 Section: News
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Eleven Midland College students won awards in the 34th Annual Creative Writing Contest.
The CWC has three categories: poetry, essay and short story.
Frances Gomez won first place in poetry for her poem "The Loss of a Mother."
Second place is poetry went to Justin Perez for "Black." In a tie for third place, Melissa Cantu won for "The Box," and Roxy Hernandez for "The Dance." Jamie Witt won honorable for "Coils of Love."
In the essay category the winners were: first place, Tim Krahel, "Creative Thinking: the Path of Discoveries"; second place, Jessica James, "Capacity for Creativity"; and honorable mention, Melody Wiseman, "Ties."
The short story winners were: first place, Genelle Felio, "The Faith of my Father"; second place, Tracy Austin, "The Seance"; and honorable mention, M. David Wiseman, "Tree of Life."
This year's contest had a total of 24 participants.
Winners in attendance were requested to read from their work during the awards ceremony.
Hearing students read their work is the "best part of this," said Mary Williams, associate professor of English and contest coordinator. "We want to hear what you do." Williams said that it was "really nice to have Dr. Thomas for the first time," and that she appreciated his willingness to help.
Steve Thomas, MC president, gave the opening remarks. Thomas said that "it's great to be back," at MC and that he enjoyed working with some of his former colleagues again who were at the ceremony as well, such as Stan Jacobs, associate vice president of instruction-transfer; Rebecca Watson, English professor; Glenda Lindsey-Hicks, English professor; and Bob Templeton, Allison Chair of Journalism.
Thomas commended the students who entered the contest. "I've always been envious of people who write well," Thomas said. People who want to write, "have to write and do it a lot," Thomas said.
"We appreciate the toil and sweat you put into your writing," said Billy Feeler, dean of fine arts and communication, to contest entrants during his welcome at the contest ceremony.
The CWC began 34 years ago because Watson wanted MC to have a contest that celebrated creative writing. Selected entries from the contest will appear in next fall's Tableau, the literary magazine of MC.
The poetry contest judge was Kay Kolb from the University of Texas of the Permian Basin. The short story judges were Claudia Philpott and Catrina Moody from Odessa College. The essay judges were Rachel Juarez-Torres and Jeanine Hurst from The University of Texas of the Perman Basin.
Refreshments were served by Terry Jolliffe, assistant professor of English.
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