The Big Sandy Mountaineer -

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!

Co- Third place was won by Freshman, Audrey Sipler for Silence Fervid

Alone to the sound of the silence

The senile lady walks along in the rain

The old abandoned house in the middle of nowhere

Whistling wind goes threw the busted out windows and rancid wooden walls

The glass shattering taking in the wind and soundq of rain dripping from the broken gutters

Her feeble fingers run across the wood to the house

The rain coming down and the light dims as the smoke rolls through the air

Memories lost in the sunflower field and damage from the rain

The swing on the tree deviant and old

Leaves gingerly sway to the ground and onto the dirt as the wind gusts

Grabbing the knob opening the door memories open

The house she grew up in between war and euphoria

The house of misinterpretation and assimilation

Consideration of the soul was not an option

Alone to the sound of silence

Not an option

The old abandoned house in the middle of nowhere

A match ignited

Sirens made not so silent

The house

The house not so cold anymore

Crackling sounds of the old wood burning as the fire goes up the silk curtains

Standing in the middle watching the memories go up in flames the sirens ascend

Breathing gone to the exhaust

Sound gone

Life gone

Silence fervid