Many months ago, Lia's English teacher gave her class the assignment to write a myth. It was a pretty open ended assignment with very little specific instructions. After Lia brainstormed an idea with Ron about writing a myth that explained the creation of the Philippine Islands, she sat down and spent several hours writing this paper. She allowed me to read it when she was done and I was totally blown away by how creative and beautifully written it had turned out. Since Lia has had a great love of reading and writing from a young age, it should not have come as a such a surprise to me, but it totally did. Her myth just sounded like something that a high school student would have written! I was so impressed with her and was also totally shocked when her very strict English teacher (who we are not big fans of) gave her a B on the assignment. As former English teachers, Ron and I both totally disagreed with this teacher's assessment of Lia's story and told her that she had definitely written an A quality paper!
A few months later, I was reading through Lia's principal's weekly newsletter that he emails out every Friday. Buried in the middle of this email, I found an announcement of a teen writing and art contest that was being sponsored by the Pierce County Library System. After looking into it, I realized that Lia's myth could qualify for the short story portion of this contest (due to length and content) and submitted it without telling her. Since Lia has tried to win other contests and elections in the past and not been selected, I knew that this would be a touchy subject with her. As a result, I decided not to mention anything to her unless she was chosen as a winner.
At the beginning of May, I received an email from a Pierce County librarian announcing that Lia's short story had been selected as the third place winner for her age group in the short story category! Since I had figured that this was a big contest since it included such a large region of Washington, I was really surprised and also so thrilled for her! After sharing the good news with Lia, it was just so rewarding to see a huge grin spread across her face. The librarian stated that her story would be published in a book with all of the contest winners and would be given to her with other prizes and even a sign to put in our front yard. In addition, we were invited to join an online celebration a few weeks later to be held in honor of all of the winners.
Since I knew very little about this contest, I did not realize what an honor it was for Lia to be chosen until this evening when the two of us sat down together to attend this online meeting. This contest called "Our Own Expressions" is a teen writing and art contest available to patrons of 73 libraries in our county. This year was extra special because it was the 25th anniversary of this contest. Over 700 applicants submitted art work or written pieces and only 12 winners were chosen for each age group--three winners for each of the four categories of photography, drawings, short story, and poetry totally 36 winners for the 7 and 8th grade, 9 and 10th grade, and 11 and 12th grade age groups. I was so blown away that Lia's story was chosen to be a winner out of so many other teenagers in our county. In addition, we learned that this contest usually hosts a recognition ceremony in the beautiful Lagerquist Concert Hall at Pacific Lutheran University. So, if it hadn't been for the pandemic, Lia, Ron, and I would have dressed up and driven into Tacoma to attend this ceremony in a fancy concert hall with all of the other winners. We have never had the opportunity to participate in an event like this with one of our children. I was so disappointed when I learned about this through the online meeting! Just one more thing that Covid took away from us...
Regardless, Lia and I spent the next hour together sitting side by side in the kitchen while every winner was recognized by two librarians through a PowerPoint presentation. Although not all of the winners chose to attend the online meeting, the librarians encouraged every member who was present to speak up when their piece of writing or art was shown on a PowerPoint slide. Although Lia was too shy to say anything when her story was presented, I was still so proud of her for receiving this award. Since we have no idea if she will ever have the chance to receive another award like this again, I will just try to treasure the fact that something she wrote all on her own, alone in her bedroom, in the middle of the pandemic was worthy of being recognized in a regional contest. Well done, Lia! I'm so very proud of you!
Lia watching the online celebration on my phone from our kitchen table.
A picture of the PowerPoint slide recognizing Lia.
The Pierce County librarians in charge of this contest announced that they would be posting one winner on their Instagram account for the next 36 days. We found Lia's posted the very next day.
A screen shot of the first paragraph of Lia's short story that was included when she was recognized her on the PCLS's Instagram page.
A few weeks later, her goodies arrived at the library for me to pick up. These included a copy of the published book with all of the winning entries, a gift card for Amazon, a journal and very nice pen (in a case), a certificate, and a sign to put in our yard. After Lia opened up everything, I immediately ran outside and put the sign up in our front yard. Here is Lia standing next to it holding all of her prizes.
A close up of Lia's sign! How cool is that?!
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