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The
2009 Student Humorous Story Competition was
a great success with forty-eight Ontario schools participating,
producing 70 entries.
We
would like to congratulate all of the students who participated.
Over the years of this contest, our judges have noted a definite
improvement in the student’s writing skills and in the maturity of their subjects. This year the quality of the entries was
particularly good making the judging more difficult.
To
make judging as fair as possible, all entries are judged blind.
When they arrive in Orillia, the entries are opened by a
disinterested party who removes the cover page and assigns a number to
the entry. The number is placed in a register, along with the
student’s name and school, and the numbered entry is then passed to
the committee. The register
is not returned to the committee until the judging is complete.
We have three judges, currently two in Ontario and one in
Saskatchewan (they change every two years or so).
All judges are published authors.
Many over the years have been winners of, or short-listed for,
the Leacock Medal for Humour
The
winner this year was Danielle Shachar from Newtonbrook
Secondary School,
Toronto (North York)
Second
place went to Andrew McCormick-Johnson of Southwood Secondary School,
Cambridge
Third
place was won by Max Cohen of Alexander Mackenzie High School, Richmond
Hill
There
was a four-way tie for fourth place.
The
following, in alphabetical order, placed in this year’s top twelve:
Van
Bailey
Hammarskjold, Thunder Bay
Garret
Brink
Russell High School, Russell
Bryanna
Kuharski Essex District High School
Sharon
Krasni Richmond
Green, Richmond Hill
Emily
Marshall Holy Cross
Catholic Secondary School, Kingston
Susan
Mulvihill Woodroffe High
School, Ottawa
Evelyn
Reynolds Robert Bateman, High School,
Burlington
Evan
Sills
Hammarskjold, Thunder Bay
Deanne
Sim
Forest Heights Collegiate Institute, Kitchener
We
hope Ontario’s students will continue to write. That is the important
message of our competition. We
also hope they will continue to improve their English language
and writing skills – skills that continue to be so very
important in building a successful career and a successful life.
Perhaps
in the years to come, one or more of these names will be short listed
for the Stephen Leacock Medal for Humour.
We can only hope.
2007
STUDENT AWARD
"We
had 72 entries from a total of 41 different schools. This is the
largest number of schools we have had participate in our six years of
running this version of the contest.
The
winner was Andrew McCormick-Johnson, a grade 10 student from
Southwood Secondary School in Cambridge Ontario. His entry was
entitled Wartime Memoirs of an Anglo-Canadian Windbag.
Andrew is very interested in drama and History, and I think his entry
shows this. Andrew and his family will be coming to Orillia for
the Soirée at the Leacock Home on Friday evening and staying for the
dinner on Saturday night.
Our
second place winner was Will Sloan, of Martingrove Collegiate Institute,
in Etobicoke. His entry was an imaginative essay on who should be
used to replace established celebrities. It is called Celebro
Replaceo. Will will be coming to the Friday night soirée at
the home.
Third
place went to Whitney Fleming from West Hill Secondary School in Owen
Sound. Her essay was entitled Dispelling the Myths and
dealt with just that - dispelling the many things we think we know, but
really don't. Whitney has been invited to attend the soirée, but
we don't know for sure if she will be able to join us."
2006 STUDENT AWARD
Hammarskjold
High School Wins Top Honours Again In the Stephen Leacock Humerous Story
Competiton
When
Alexandra Kraft-Willson
of Thunder Bay’s Hammarskjold High School was asked to take ‘a time
out’ from her class on Romeo and Juliet to answer the telephone, her
hesitant "Hello" turned to shouts of joy and gales of
laughter. For the second year in a row, one of her English students had
won the Stephen Leacock Student Humorous Story competition....and to add
to her joy, another of her students had placed third. The mother of
Carmen Fletcher, who’s short story, My Pop Culture Curse, won
the $1,000 first prize, just happened to be in the office, and we wish
we had been there to see the celebration. Travis Comeau, took third
place for his story Call of the Wild. "I knew we had some
good ones!" Said Mrs. Kraft-Willson, "I just knew we
did!" We received five entries from Hammarskjold this year.
The second prize goes to Jason
Voulgaris of Danforth Tech in Toronto. His story, Requiem for a
Bicycle Seat, was one of several entries from Danforth, two of which
placed in the top ten.
Orillian, Kyle Weber of Patrick
Fogarty placed in the top ten.
Carmen is a Grade 12 student,
who plans to study biology at the University of Ottawa next year. Jason
Voulgaris will be attending University as well, but is vacillating
between York and the University of Toronto. Eventually he hopes to
become a full-time writer. Travis Comeau has chosen Mechanical
Engineering at the University of Ottawa. He and Carmen are
co-presidents of the Youth Action Coalition against Child Poverty at
Hammarskjöld.
We look forward to meeting with
Carmen Fletcher, her Mother and Alexandra Kraft-Willson on the weekend
of June 9 - 10. We hope that Travis Comeau and Jason Voulgaris will also
be able to join us...but only time will tell if that is possible.
Please join us at the Leacock
Museum on Friday, June 9th at 8 p.m. when we honour our student winners.
It will renew your faith in the younger generation.
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