Student Artists, Poets Earn Top Awards in River of Words Competition

AUBURN, Ala. (4/28/04) — Nine students from across the state have earned top honors in the first-ever Alabama River of Words (ROW) competition, among them a Florence teen who also received recognition at the national level.

ROW is a U.S. Library of Congress–affiliated international contest that was established in 1995 to encourage young people to translate environmental science into art and poetry. The program is designed to promote environmental awareness, literacy and the arts among the world’s children and youth.

Alabama’s ROW program was organized in 2003 and is cosponsored by the Auburn University Environmental Institute (AUEI), the Alabama Center for the Book, the AU College of Agriculture and the AU Libraries.

More than 300 Alabama students from kindergarten through grade 12 submitted original artwork and poetry in the 2004 ROW contest. Competition was in four age categories, including kindergarten-grade 2, grades 3-6, grades 7-9 and grades 10-12. All entries were judged at both the state and national level.

In the art contest, Sarah Elizabeth Rogers, a senior at Bradshaw High School in Florence, won double honors for a photograph she called “The Unlikely Pond.” In addition to claiming first place among the grade 10-12 entries in Alabama’s contest, her entry earned an honorable mention in the national competition.

Other first-place winners in the art division included:
• Chris Miles, a second-grader from Oliver Elementary School in Birmingham, for his piece entitled “The Lake”;
• Sarah Everette, a third-grader from Grant, for her drawing, “Choices”;
• Blocker Griftin, a sixth-grader from Hartselle, for a drawing he entitled “Watershed”;
• Austin Hollon, a seventh-grader from Cleveland High School, for his piece,“The River.”

In the poetry competition, first-place winners were:
• Matthew Hill, a kindergartener from Cordova, for a poem called “Fun at the River”;
• Bonnie Pike, a Hartselle Junior High School sixth-grader, for her poem, “The Wetland”;
• Quentin Ratcliffe, an eighth-grader from the Camden School of Arts and Technology, with his poem “One with Water”;
• Bradshaw High School senior Rusty Grant Russell, for a poem entitled “Lucid Echoes.”

A total of 43 awards, including first through third places and honorable mentions, were handed out in Alabama’s inaugural ROW contest. Information about next year’s Alabama ROW contest will be distributed statewide in August to give teachers and students time to study watersheds and create their art or poetry submissions before the February 2005 national and state deadline for entries.

For information on the international ROW program, visit the Web site at www.riverofwords.org. Call AUEI at (334) 844-4132 or Alabama Center for the Book at (334) 844-4946 to learn more about Alabama ROW.

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Contact Jamie Creamer, 334-844-2783 or jcreamer@auburn.edu

04/28/04

For immediate release