Booth Western Art Museum Honors CHS Students!

 

BARTOW COUNTY SCHOOLS REPRESENTED WELL IN BOOTH WESTERN

ART MUSEUM’S WRITING THROUGH ART LITERARY COMPETITION

 Out of more than 500 entries, Bartow County has 19 students selected as finalists  

CARTERSVILLE, GA – Booth Western Art Museum is proud to announce winners of the 2014 Writing Through Art Literary Competition. The purpose of the contest is to encourage students to develop writing skills by using works of art from the Booth’s collection as inspiration.

 

The original contest, inspired and developed by the late Doc Stovall, focused solely on Cowboy Poetry.  This unique genre originated from the cattle drives of the late 1800s. In 2005, the contest became a feature of the Museum’s annual Southeastern Cowboy Gathering, with winners reciting their poems before an audience in the tradition of cowboys on the cattle trails. Currently, the expanded writing contest includes short stories, essays, narrative poetry, as well as cowboy poetry.

Bartow County Schools’ language arts teachers Dr. Kathleen McKenzie, Brittany Holland and Joy Leaphart assisted Booth Museum education staff by selecting works of art, writing lesson plans, and implementing the contest in their respective classrooms. The competition was open to students, grades 9 – 12, in Georgia public and private schools, as well as students, grades 9 – 12, who are home-schooled. More than 500 students from Bartow, Gordon and Cherokee counties participated in the competition.

Eight finalists were selected in each of the four divisions with cash prizes awarded to the first three places and teachers of finalists, while honorable mention certificates were awarded to the remaining finalists. 

Each finalist in the cowboy poetry division had the opportunity to recite his/her entry during Booth Western Art Museum’s 11th annual Southeastern Cowboy Gathering on Saturday, March 8, 2014. Here, the first place winner was presented the Doc Stovall Cowboy Poetry Award.

Winners of the Writing through Art Literary Competition from CHS and their respective categories are as follows:

Canaan Andrews, Honorable Mention – Short Story

Hannah Guthrie, Honorable Mention – Short Story

William Brazell, 1st place – Essay

Samantha Sanders, 1st place – Narrative Poetry

Veronica Adams, Honorable Mention – Narrative Poetry

Morgan Free, 1st place – Cowboy Poetry

Violetta Khirina, 2nd place – Cowboy Poetry

Lauren McKaig, Honorable Mention – Cowboy Poetry

Rachel Blankinship, Honorable Mention, Cowboy Poetry

About the Booth Western Art Museum

Booth Western Art Museum, an Affiliate to the Smithsonian Institution, is a 120,000 square foot museum located in Cartersville, Georgia, where guests are invited to See America’s Story by exploring the American West through contemporary Western artwork. The Museum also houses a Presidential Gallery, Civil War art gallery, and Sagebrush Ranch, an interactive children’s gallery. Open since August 2003, Booth Museum is the only museum of its kind in the Southeast and is the second largest art museum in the state of Georgia. To learn more about Booth Western Art Museum, visit www.boothmuseum.org.



 

L-R) Front row: Dr. Kathleen McKenzie, Veronica Adams, Morgan Free, Violetta Khirina, Canaan Andrews, and Samantha Sanders. Back row: William Brazell, Hannah Guthrie, Lauren McKaig, Rachel Blankinship, and Lisa Wheeler of Booth Western Art Museum. Not pictured: Ms. Brittney Holland.