Valley View students receive 5 regional awards

Three Valley View School District 365U students recently earned 2017 Scholastic Art & Writing regional awards for their poetry.

Brooks Middle School eighth-grader Kayla O’Bryant won a Gold Key award, fellow Brooks eighth-grader Emily Sanchez secured two Silver Key awards, and Bolingbrook High School freshman Nyah Nelson – a Brooks graduate – received both a Silver Key and an Honorable Mention.

The Scholastic Art & Writing Awards program is the country’s longest-running scholarship and recognition organization for creative students in middle school and high school.

O’Bryant said she has been writing books and stories since she was 8 years old, and has enjoyed writing poetry in the past year.

Her Gold Key-winning poem was about her father during what she termed “a really, really hard time” for her.

Sanchez said the award was “a huge thing for me,” and winning was a key factor in her future hopes of writing books and poetry and being a musician after finishing her education. One of her winning poems was dedicated to “women who are struggling with hate and danger,” while the other winning poem was about a stable relationship with a guy who was “everything you could wish for.”

Nelson didn’t start writing poetry until Brooks language arts teacher Sally Green encouraged her. Green taught all three award winners at some point in their education.

Students across the nation submitted more than 330,000 works of art and writing this year.

The three Valley View students competed against other students in the Midwest.