This is the ninth year former Big Sandy High School graduate Ellaraine Lockie has provided the English students at BSHS the opportunity to participate in the Walter Gerson Poetry Contest.

Each year Ellaraine Lockie judges students’ poetry, makes comments about the poems and awards students for their excellent poetry and participation. This year is no exception. There are several cash prizes and several honorable mentions.

Two teachers at Big Sandy high school have been involved in the poetry contest. Lauren Clampitt handled the Gerson poems for the first six years they were in existence. This is Kimberly Perry’s first year at handling the Big Sandy part of the contest.

Each year the students in grades 8 through 12 compose a poem. They are all mailed to Ellaraine Lockie in California. Lockie, a published poet whose poems appear monthly in “The Mountaineer”, makes her only requirement for the poems is that they be in free verse. She judges all of the poems, decides on three money winners and several honorable mentions and then mails them back. She funds the prizes each year from her own pocket. This is a very special cause for Lockie and so appreciated by the rest of us. The Big Sandy school has appreciated Lockie’s willingness to allow the contest each year.

Once again “The Mountaineer” will print all of the poems. Thanks to Big Sandy students, Ellaraine Lockie and Kelsey Voeller for making our pages better!

First place was won by Seventh grader, Amiya Griffith she wrote, “ Don’t Judge a Book by its Cover”

“Don’t Judge a Book by its Cover”

By Amiya Griffith

The stars clung to the night sky like newborns,

as my tired body flew silently across the sky.

Lightning and thunder used the clouds as shelter,

while they did so I glided down to the sad earth and spread my wings to land.

Animals scurried away in fright,

for I was as dark as the places that never shine.

My eyes were tired,

but my body couldn’t wait,

for morning when the light shone,

to fix my dark feathers,

and show me the light again.

When morning finally came I spread my wings and hopped into the bright, color filled sky,

to which this made me fly with a new energy.

For I was now as bright as the northern lights.

My eyes like amber and gold,

and my feathers a pearly white.

I wasn’t a monster,

for I only needed to be shown the light.

The Unknown Should Not Always be Considered a Monster,

For Sometimes we Only Need the Light.