Junior Maria Lucia Flores has received the highest regional award offered by Gold Key Scholastic Art and Writing in Poetry while Junior Danylo Filipenko earned an Honorable Mention in Memoir.

“Danylo had to flee Ukraine with his mother over the summer, and I’ve had the pleasure of having him for a student this year,” said Mrs. Mota, their English teacher. “Lucia will now move onto to the state writing competition, with hopes that she will make it to nationals. And both will be celebrated in a special regional competition ceremony in Houston this spring. Please join me in congratulating these amazing writers!”

Who I Am

By Maria Flores

I am Thanksgiving.

Not in the sense that you are thinking of though.

I am not ham, nor am I turkey.

I am not the pilgrims or going to grandmother’s house.

I am Thanksgiving in the sense of it being a holiday.

A holiday trapped in between Halloween and Christmas.

It is the holiday people overlook

Nobody’s favorite.

I mean why would it be, when there is such a cool holiday as Halloween.

With candy galore, parties, and getting to dress up in whatever costume pleases one.

Thus there is everyone’s favorite Christmas.

The cookies and milk, setting up the Christmas tree, listening to carolers, ice skating.

Why wouldn’t it be a favorite?

With all the cheerfulness and festivities that come from it.

Then there is Thanksgiving.

Thanksgiving is a blur,

A passed up holiday.

Only there to track the time between Halloween and Christmas.

When asked out of the three which holiday is the peoples’ favorite,

Thanksgiving always comes in third.

I feel this way about myself.

I am not as jolly as Christmas

I am not as exciting as Halloween

I am a nobody

I am not the favorite

I am the Natives, being backstabbed by the people they thought they could trust

I am overlooked

I am unchosen

I am brown and dull

I am a placeholder

I am Thanksgiving.