RCSD Celebrates Two Award Winning Student Writers

(May 2008 - Riverhead, NY) At its May 6th Board of Education meeting, the Riverhead Central School District celebrated the achievement of two young writers, one just beginning her education at RCSD and the other just completing hers.

Melissa Barnes, a senior at Riverhead High School and enrolled in the high school’s AP Language class, was recently notified that she was chosen as the winner of The News-Review's First Amendment Essay contest. Melissa’s essay will be printed on the op-ed pages of an upcoming edition of The News-Review. As the winner from Riverhead High School, she will receive a prize of $100 and as the newspaper's overall winner, she will receive an additional prize of $250.

Melissa is a member of the National Honor Society and the National Technical Honor Society at BOCES. She has the distinction of being one of only two female auto tech students in the program, and currently works at Toyota of Riverhead as an auto tech intern. Melissa will attend Sacred Heart University in Fairfield, Connecticut, next year where she plans to major in physical therapy.

At the other end of the educational spectrum is Roanoke kindergartener Leah Zenk, who won 2nd place in the category of “Kindergarten Prose” of the Suffolk Reading Council’s 2007-08 Creative Writing and Art Cover Contest. (Roanoke was also named as a Suffolk Reading Council Honor School.) Leah is in Tara Malanga's Kindergarten class and here's her entry. . .

The Water Park by Leah Zenk

It was dark. I was screaming all the way down. I like to go on the slides at the Water Park. The bucket dumped all the water on my head. The water hurt so bad, I didn’t think that water could hurt like that. Then we went around on the one that looked like a toilet. We went around and around and then we tipped into the water. I scratched my finger on that ride. That was a great day! It was fun!

Congratulations to these outstanding young writers!