Two meals. Three awards. One Amen.

I enjoyed the honor of attending two different meals this past week which recognized three of our students from Bios Christian. Christin for her essay written to honor American veterans, Savannah and Isabella recognized people in their lives who exemplified the servant-leadership of Martin Luther King Jr.

Attending her third banquet in recognition of a paper that won first place at a local VFW, then moving on to another first place at the district level, Christin’s paper ended up with a third place and $250 at the state level. Excited parents, brother, and sister in attendance, Christin’s writing skills were acknowledged.

The same for Savannah and Isabella who earned first and third out of over 1200 entries in the MLK writing contest sponsored by ASU. They also enjoyed the presence of their teacher, parents, and a grandparent at the breakfast.

The different writing contests we have our students participate in serve many purposes. First, they provide a structure and purpose to their writing. One to three different contests are entered each month keying on a variety of topics and writing modalities – essays, research papers, and poetry; with history, science, culture, and the arts represented.

I know of no other writing program as rich in purpose, recognition, variety, and topics as ours.

Judging and recognition by people other than the student’s own teach is important. In many instances I have heard from teachers that a student’s paper which won in a contest would not have been their choice. When I taught our own children, I favored and enjoyed my oldest son’s style of writing while usually just accepting my youngest son’s compositions. Yet, both earned recognition of their writing efforts in contests we submitted to. Our requirement that all student’s writings are sent in for every contest works around our personal biases.

Finally, even though both contests were essentially different secular cultures, they shared similarities. Both had great tasting bacon included in their meals. Both were focused on honoring heroes – veterans and Martin Luther King Jr. And both ended with honoring the God of the Bible – the veterans with prayer in Jesus’ name and the university with a public school choir singing “Praising His Name.” Amen.