Peters holds poetry competition
McMURRAY – Peters Township Public Library’s first floor was covered in nearly 300 handwritten poems from students at Pleasant Valley Elementary and Bower Hill Elementary schools.
There were a lot of proud parents on hand, too.
The occasion May 4 was the first Poetry Party and Contest for students in kindergarten through third grade in the two schools. The students were given the month of April to complete and illustrate a poem to be entered in the competition.
Rebecca Edwards, a second-grade teacher at Bower Hill, along with Karly Kunkle, the librarian at Bower Hill, and Nancy Barley, the librarian at Pleasant Valley, judged the contest and came up with two winners in each grade from both schools.
“We used a rubric to grade each one,” Edwards said. “We judged on handwriting, title, illustrations and creativity.”
Added Barley, “One of our goals at Pleasant Valley was to celebrate writing. … The creativity surprised me.”
One of the winners, Ava Maloni, a third-grader at Bower Hill, wrote her poem about her grandfather.
“I did it because I love my Pap a lot,” she said.
Her mother, Melissa Maloni, was proud of her daughter.
“This competition is a great thing,” she said.
The winners read their poems at the library. Each student received a certificate and round of applause .
The kindergarten winners were Keira Rinsem and Lexi Vance of Pleasant Valley, and Dante Srsic and Kara Steigel of Bower Hill. First-grade winners were Abby Dunbar and Mason Miller of Pleasant Valley and Alex Pittman and Graziella Whitworth of Bower Hill.
Second-grade winners were Claire Henry and Adelaide Lulich of Pleasant Valley and Brynn Carter and Colby Zimmer of Bower Hill. Third-grade winners, besides Ava Maloni, were Bennett Ziegler of Bower Hill and Alaina Abbatto and Ashlyn Morgan of Pleasant Valley.