Slippery Rock Area students receive awards for writing
Slippery Rock Area High School students Andy Hudack, Rylan Zupko, Ryan Hayden, Sierra Wilson, Julia Bonetti and Sierra Pearce attended the Pennsylvania School Press Association Competition at Penn State University on March 30. Some competed against 300 students statewide and participated in round table discussions.
The mission of the association is to promote responsible scholastic journalism and advocate for First Amendment rights.
Andy placed first in Literary Magazine Poetry with a poem written about justice. “With a score of 22 out of 24, he was one of the highest scores in literary poetry over the last several years,” said Andrea Patten, an English teacher at Slippery Rock high school.
Rylan, one of the youngest to compete at the state level, took part in Editorial Writing in which she had to create her own editorial topic.
“It was a very insightful day. I got to talk to a lot of other schools who run newspapers. We don’t have a dedicated newspaper class anymore. They’ve combined it with multimedia productions. I’m really very passionate about getting that back up and running here,” Rylan said.
Sierra Pearce, a freshman, was in attendance. “I didn’t compete personally, but I really enjoyed going there. It was interesting to see how it all works. I plan on doing the photography competition there next year,” she said.
“I’m very proud of them. They practice all year in our school with interviewing students. This was really exciting,” Patten said.
