For the third year in a row St. Mary’s Academy students have won national 2007 Scholastic Art and Writing Awards – all Silver Key. To add perspective, of 25,000 works of art and writing forwarded onto national adjudication, only 350 writers earned national gold or silver this year. Talented senior Bridget Brewer won a national award for the second year in a row with her General Writing Portfolio. Senior and school valedictorian Madeline Wyse won a Silver Award with her short story “Telling Stories” and fellow senior Erin Oleson also won silver with her Science Fiction/Fantasy “Classification ‘a’”.
More than 100,000 works of art and writing are submitted to the 80 regional programs and “Region-at-Large,” and from these finalists, approximately 850 artists and 350 writers are bestowed national gold or silver awards. Due to lack of state funding, Oregon is now part of the “Region-at-Large” which means St. Mary’s students initially competed against approximately 5,000 other entries.
All national award recipients are invited to the National Celebration Events in New York City from June 14-15, 2007. Events will include creative industry site visits and workshops, a national art exhibition, and the National Awards Ceremony at Carnegie Hall on June 15.
“I’m so proud of Bridget, Madeline, Erin and all of our students who create fiction and poetry,” says St. Mary’s English Department Chair Sara Salvi. “We have some pretty darn talented girls here!”
Founded in 1859 by the Sisters of the Holy Names of Jesus and Mary, St. Mary’s Academy of Portland, is Oregon’s oldest continuously operating secondary school and one of 716 all-female schools in the country. The student body represents a diverse background of young women from over 30 urban, suburban, and rural communities in Oregon and Southwest Washington. St. Mary’s Academy is distinguished by its development of the whole person, and is the only school in the state to receive three U.S. Department of Education Blue Ribbon Schools awards.
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