MSMS students have been laboring long and hard in their English classes. On Oct. 8, all of that hard work payed off for students Braeden Foldenauer, Emily Shy, Stephanie Dauber, Jalexis Evans, Reagan Poston, Dustin Dunaway and Wrishija Roy as it was announced that they had all either won or been titled honorable mention in MUW’s annual Ephemera writing competition.

This is the third year that MSMS students have participated in the Ephemera competition, and the third year that MSMS has dominated the rankings. In 2014, MSMS students won all five spots.

In 2015, students won four out of the five spots, and this year all five spots were again filled by MSMS students Foldenhauer; Shy; Dauber; Evans and Poston. Dunaway and Roy received honorable mention for their submissions.

Every year The Ephemera competition board, headed by MUW Professor Kendall Dunkelberg, assigns students a thought provoking prompt based off Eudora Welty’s works to model its competition submissions. This year the board gave students the prompt “Overcoming the silence: To speak out when ‘It warrants no stir.’”

Every student enrolled in Mrs. Emma Richardson’s Creative Writing I/II classes was required to submit something relating to the prompt. Some students like Foldenauer, an MSMS Senior who won with his essay “Monster Inside Me,” who were not in Creative Writing still submitted their work.

Richardson said, “I am gratified that they do so well, and of course they have so much natural talent I feel that it is my job to help them realize the full potential of their talent.”

The responses to the prompt were straight from the heart for many students, with topics ranging from child abuse, to social justice and to family ties.

Dauber, an MSMS junior who won with her passionate story “Cheyenne and Mama.” “To win something like this, for what I have written, feels like a win for social justice in some way.”

For many students, winning the competition came as a shock. Dustin Dunaway, an MSMS senior who won the competition with his essay “Calloused Hands,” said, “I was in disbelief when I saw that I received honorable mention. I’ve always read, but this year was my first time to try my hand at writing.”

Feeling similarly to Dunaway, Dauber stated, “I was surprised to see that I had won just because I’ve never been formally recognized for my writing so it was nice to see that all of my years of bad poetry from elementary school had been able to evolve into something eloquent enough to win an award.”

The winners of the competition will have the honor of reading their submissions in front of a congregation of esteemed authors during an author’s lunch, and will receive a cash award of $200 during an award ceremony. Honorable mentions will also have the great opportunity to attend the award ceremony.