Every year, students are given an opportunity to express themselves through visual and literary arts in the Scholastic Art and Writing Awards. More than 90,000 students across the nation participate. This year, a number of students participated in all 28 categories, including ceramics and photography. The competition rewards students with gold or silver keys as well as honorable mentions. While Scholastics takes up a lot of time and effort, most feel that it is completely worth it in the end.

The gold key, being the most desirable, is very competitive. It is given to students who truly have excelled in their category. The silver key is given to students who are very talented. Honorable mention is awarded to students who show great potential, but whose pieces could still need some edits or corrections. All of these awards are a great achievement and are really something to be proud of.

Principal Dr. Raymond Pasi is blown away with the school’s presence in the competition.

“Every year, Yorktown is very well represented in the competition, which speaks highly of the students who participate and the teachers that help them. We are very proud of the success that we achieve,”  said Pasi.

Sophomore Allison Loranger was a winner of the ceramics category.

“I got to discover a new hobby of mine through ceramics this year, and participating in Scholastics really pushed me to try my hardest to succeed in the class,” said Loranger.

The talent pool from Yorktown has grown in the past few years, and students are beginning to express themselves in many new ways. Photography teacher Allen Beland holds a high standard for his students in the competition. Students in his photography class begin preparing in September and continue their work all the way through February.

Beland is proud of his students’ works.

“It starts the first week of school, I give a weekly reminder from September until winter break. From there, we upload all the images, we photograph, edit and resize to get everything perfect,” said Beland.

As the number of people entering the competition grows, so do the standards. Sophomore Madeline Reicherter won a gold key last year and this year she won honorable mention in photography.

“I wish I would have known about the increasing competition, but I am glad that I still got to participate,” said Reicherter.

Junior Tyler Parker won both a gold and silver key this year in photography.

“This competition provided me with a new outlook on photography and I’m so glad I got to share my photography with so many people,” said Parker.

Prior to participating, Parker was unsure if he even had a passion for photography.

“My teacher made us submit a piece, and at first I wasn’t really looking forward to putting all the time in it, but I ended up having a lot of fun editing and making my photo the way I wanted it,” Parker said.

For over 90 years, Scholastics has been giving creative students an opportunity to express themselves through the visual and literary arts. Yorktown has been lucky to be a part of the Awards for many years in the past, and students have excelled this past year with hundreds of winners in all aspects of the competition.