Three Copley-Fairlawn Students Win NE Ohio Essay Contest

Three sixth grade Copley-Fairlawn Middle School students took first, second and third place at the “Stop The Hate: Youth Speak Out!” essay contest sponsored by the Maltz Museum of Jewish Heritage.

Srikar Dudipala, Brian Luck and Micah Stark rounded out the sixth grade category and won every prize for their age group.

The event was held at Cleveland's Severance Hall and presented by Dealer Tire and KeyBank and featured several guest speakers.

The "Stop The Hate: Youth Speak Out!" contest asks students, grades six through 12 to describe an act of discrimination, reflect on their own response and write a 500-word essay with a plan of action to affect change. Essays are then scored on content, writing, originality and creativity, and utilization of the theme of personal responsibility.

First Place winner Srikar Dudipala's essay talks about new boy coming to the district and being bullied for being overweight and slow in gym class. Srikar talks about how he helped his friend get through the hard times and about how he's one of the more popular boys in school now.

Second place winner Brian Luck wrote about a boy who was in a physical altercation with boys at school and how he changed because of that fight. Brian hopes to start an anti-bullying campaign to show how bullying affects everyone.

Third place winner Micah Stark talks about how he helped a new student from Saudi Arabia learn English. Other boys on the playground laughed at the boy and told him to go back to his own country, but Micah took him under his wing and helped him gain some ground.

To read each of these essays, click on the media portion of this article. Congratulations, boys!