Local students win in writing

From left, Shepherdstown Middle School Principal Ms. Best; Chris Eder, 1st Place eighth grade winner; Mrs. Reilly, Chris’s teacher; Ms. Unger, Ariel’s teacher; Ariel Cifala, 1st Place winner, fifth grade; Barbara Nickell and Betty Reinhart, Pack Horse Ford Chapter NSDAR members.
Two Shepherdstown students were recently recognized for their outstanding American history essay entries by the West Virginia State Society, Daughters of the American Revolution.
The first-place essays were written by Ariel Cifala, a fifth grader at Shepherds-town Elementary School; and Chris Eder, an eighth grader at Shepherdstown Middle School. The essay contest was open to all fifth through eighth grade students.
The essay topic was “The Completion of the First Continental Railroad.” Students were to “describe how you felt on May 10, 1869, when the golden spike was drive at Promontory Summit, Utah, to celebrate the completion of the First Transcontinental Railroad. Pretend you are either a settler planning to use the train to travel to your new home in the West, an Irish or Chinese worker who helped build the line, or a Native American whose way of life was greatly affected by the railroad.”
Students were to write 300 to 1,000 words, depending on grade level. The local Pack Horse Ford Chapter of the NSDAR selected these students as winners in March and forwarded their essays to the State Society for judging.
Cifala and Eder’s state winning essays are now competing at the East Central Division level of the NSDAR.
– Submitted by Kathy Sholl
Hidden Valley Circle