South Range tops in Power of the Pen contest

Staff report

CANFIELD

South Range, Austintown, Canfield and Howland middle schools took top honors Saturday in the 2016 Power of the Pen District Tournament at Canfield Village Middle School.

Power of the Pen is an interscholastic writing competition among students and school teams throughout Ohio.

Winners of Saturday’s competition advance to the regional contest at Malone University in Canton on March 5. Winners there advance to the state tournament at the College of Wooster in May.

About 110 seventh- and eighth-graders who represented the best student writers from 11 schools in Mahoning, Trumbull and Columbiana counties participated in Saturday’s daylong event.

It featured a series of three rounds of 40-minute essay-writing contests that included such impromptu topics as talking your way out of a bad situation, picking a color as a modifier of an essay’s central theme and writing about a conversation that you wish you had not overheard.

Eighth-grade school results from Saturday were: first place, South Range Middle School, 1,600 points; second place, Austintown Middle, 1,540 points; third place, Canfield Village Middle, 1,520 points; and fourth place, Howland Middle, 1,490 points.

Seventh-grade school results were: first place, South Range Middle, 1,649 points; second place, Canfield Village Middle, 1,645 points; third place, Howland Middle, 1,641 points; and fourth place, Austintown Middle, 1,637 points.

Eighth-grade individual winners included first place, Grace Strodtbeck of Howland; second place, Olivia Rhodehamel of South Range; third place, Johnna Blystone of Austintown; and fourth place, Audra Pekso of Canfield Village.

Seventh-grade individual winners were first place, Cameron Lozier of Austintown Middle; second place, Megan Brockway of Holy Family School in Poland; third place, Elise Williams of Austintown Middle;and fourth place, Samantha Hudock of Canfield Middle.

A new award, accompanied by a $50 prize, was given in memory of Dante Zambrini, former Canfield English teacher, principal and schools superintendent, to the student deemed the best overall winner. Zambrini, who died earlier this month, was a strong supporter of student literary arts.

The 2016 Dante Zambrini Award award was given to Grace Strodtbeck of Howland Middle School.

Other schools that participated in Saturday’s event included St. Charles of Boardman, La Brae Middle, Lordstown High, Lincoln Middle of Warren, Girard Junior High and East Palestine Middle.