The Big Sandy Mountaineer -

This is the tenth 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.

Each year the students in grades eighth through twelfth 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 Sarah Pugh for sharing them with the community. We are a little late at getting them in the paper this year.

Second Place Winner

“Maybe You Own Me”

By Abriana Rayne Blanton

I sit like a dog by the door

Waiting for her owner to come home from a day at work.

Maybe you will come crashing in,

Like a stampede of warmth and love just for me.

I hope that you will look at me

With eyes of adoration and craving.

Maybe you will apologize for breaking me over, and over;

Time, and time again.

I pray that you still dream of us, and

the memories we used to share.

Maybe you will tell me that you too,

Have been waiting for this day of unification.

I still sit here waiting for you, even though

You will only leave again.

Maybe I will get over you,

But the collar you gave me is still softly strangling my neck.