News
Athens Middle School Wins Power Of The Pen
By: Sarah Hawley | Athens Messenger staff reporter
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After placing second in 2013, the Athens Middle School team placed first at the 2014 Power of the Pen creative writing competition.
The win marks the first for the school, which has competed in the program for 24 years. The eighth grade team took first place out of the 280 schools representing 82 of Ohio’s 88 counties.
A total of eight team members from the school, including all six eighth-grade students, took part in the state competition.
The qualification process for the state tournament began in February with the district competition. For the district competition the team is comprised on six students from both the seventh grade and eighth grade. There are also two alternates per grade level. The team had nine participants place at the district level, with eight reaching the state level.
The six eighth graders to qualify for the state competition also qualified for the state tournament as seventh graders.
This year’s eighth grade team placed first at all three levels of competition, district, regional and state. At the regional competition, the collective group from Athens Middle School received the Sweepstakes Award for having earned the overall best score. The seventh grade team placed second overall at the district competition.
Eighth grade team members and alternates were Grace Pratt, Sery Gunawardena, Lily Herold, Leah Ryu, Mirian Curp, Yu-Shin Jeng, Yu-Shiang Jeng and Selinde Roosenberg. Seventh grade team members and alternates were Tessa Meek, Teagan Hughes, Sylvie Wilson, Mel Gunawardena, Margo Cahill, Hannah Bruckner, Suzy Abdelquader and Anru Tian. The teams are coached by Betsy Anderson, eighth grade English teacher.
Individual award winners for the eighth grade were, Leah Ryu: seventh place regional, seventh place district, placement in the power round at state and and overal ranking on number one in the state.
Grace Pratt: first place district with perfect first place scores in all three rounds of writing, third place regionals, placement in the power round at state and and overall ranking of 10th in the state.
Sery Gunawardena: second place district with a best of round winner, the best of round winner was named best of the best ad the regional competition.
Lily Herold: fourth place district, first place regional, with best of round winner in two rounds of writing, perfect first place score in all three rounds of writing at the regional competition, placement in the power round at state.
Miriam Curp: 12th place district.
Yu-Shin: 14th place district, eighth place regional, placement in the power round at state.
Individual award winners for the seventh grade team were, Tessa Meek: second place district.
Teagan Hughes: third place district, 17th place regional with best of round winner in round two, qualification for state.
Margo Cahill: 15th place district, 11th place regional, qualification for state.