Bay Middle School students flourish at Power of the Pen

BMS Power of the Pen winners (left-to-right), front - Shaley Stearns and Hannah Wittkopf; back - Amanda Brian, Tim Garner, Tom Shelton and Olivia Swasey.

Bay Middle School students took writing to a competitive level through their participation in Power of the Pen, a creative writing competition for seventh and eighth grade students.

Seventh-graders Tim Garner and Olivia Swasey, and eighth-graders Amanda Brian, Thomas Shelton, Shaley Stearns, and Hannah Wittkopf qualified at the district competition in January to participate in the regional Power of the Pen competition that was held at Learwood Middle School in Avon Lake on March 6.  

Qualifying for state-level competition, to be held at the College of Wooster on Friday, May 21, are seventh-grader Tim Garner and eighth-graders Amanda Brian and Hannah Wittkopf.

Students from all over Ohio meet in Power of the Pen tournaments to write for three sessions of 40 minutes, responding to a prompt given immediately before the writing begins. Students meet once a week throughout the school year to prepare for the tournaments. Seventh-grade teacher Karen Schneider is advisor for the Bay Middle School Power of the Pen program.

Karen Derby is the Public Information Officer for the Bay Village City School District.