Rockwood Students Earn Top Prizes in Missouri Regional Scholastic Writing Awards
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Rockwood Students Earn Top Prizes in Missouri Regional Scholastic Writing Awards
A total of seven students from five Rockwood School District schools earned recognition in this year's Missouri regional round of the national Scholastic Writing Awards contest.
The Scholastic Art and Writing Awards, presented annually since 1923, are the nation’s longest-running, most prestigious recognition program for creative teens. The Missouri regional writing contest, organized by the Greater Kansas City Writing Project (GKCWP), received hundreds submissions this year from 7th-12th-grade students in Missouri and Kansas.
Submissions received one of three recognition levels: Gold Key, Silver Key and Honorable Mention. An entry by Marquette High student Jamie Park was one of only 40 in the region to receive Gold Key recognition, while entries by Eureka High's Paige Deakin and Lafayette High's Riley Kummer were two of only 98 to receive Silver Key.
Entries by four Rockwood students -- Rockwood South Middle's Lucy Brieler, Marquette's Wangshu Liu, Lafayette's Kaavya Panchal and Rockwood Summit High's Aditi Vangala -- were among 198 to receive an Honorable Mention. Brieler's entry was one of only three by a seventh-grader -- and 47 overall by a middle-schooler -- to receive recognition in this year's contest.
Winning pieces are published in "Missouri Youth Write," an online publication available on the GKCWP website.
Congratulations to these outstanding Rockwood student writers! Read below for more information about their entries.
Rockwood Students Earning Recognition in the 2025 Regional Scholastic Writing Awards
- Jamie Park, Marquette, Gold Key, "A Breakup Letter to AP Chem" (Humor)
- Paige Deakin, Eureka, Silver Key, "Superheroes Need Saving Too" (Critical Essay)
- Riley Kummer, Lafayette, Silver Key, "Where the Moon Dies" (Novel Writing)
- Lucy Brieler, Rockwood South, Honorable Mention, "Hopping Along Through Life" (Short Story); Educator: Kristen Engle
- Wangshu Liu, Marquette, Honorable Mention, "To Circumvent the Reinvention of the Wheel (Humor)
- Kaavya Panchal, Lafayette, Honorable Mention, "She Who Waits" (Poetry); Educator: Jeffrey Landow
- Aditi Vangala, Rockwood Summit, Honorable Mention, "Whispers of a Lotus" (Poetry)
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