Editor’s Note: CSU-Pueblo student Nick Isenhart submitted this story to the TODAY about the recent academic and creative writing contest.

The seventh annual Across-Curriculum Academic and Creative Writing Contests awards banquet on April 14 proved to be a hit with a record-tying number of entries.

This year’s event, which was sponsored by the CSU-Pueblo English Club and the Office of Student Activities, drew 41 entries from lower division, upper division and English Composition students in a wide variety of departments including history, chemistry/physics, psychology and English.

Constance Little, the English Club faculty sponsor, said she would like to see 60 or more entries next year.

“This is one of the most important things we do here at this university,” CSU-Pueblo Provost Russ Meyer said.

Academic papers entered in the contest could be taken from any course or subject as long as it had been assigned and turned in, and was sponsored by a faculty member.

Katherine Frank, English/Foreign Language Department chair, sponsored lower-division winner Amanda Starr’s paper “Expressive Theory Exemplified through ‘Ode to a Nightingale and ‘The Eolian Harp'” and second-place winner Kiersten Yanni’s “Philosophers and Poets Debate: Subjective, Empiricist Truth vs. Rational, Universal Ideas.”

Aubree Alley won third place in lower division with “Determining the Amount of Horsepower It Takes a Person to Walk and Run”.

First place was awarded to Brittney Whatley for her paper “The Economy Hits Rock Bottom”. Second place was given to Jazmine Wells for “Body Exposure: Analyzing the Unequal Portrayal of Comic Book Characters”. Third place was given to Chloe Mulligan’s “Convenience turned Negligent?”.

Adam Jones was awarded first place in the upper division for “The Gospel from Outer Space: The Christian Ideology in Fiction from James to Vonnegut,”.

John Lamberson’s “Is Nabokov’s Pen Mightier than Nabokov’s Board?,” won second place while Megan Phillips won third with “Sex Education is Necessary”.

For the Creative Writing Contest, students could submit either prose, which is short fiction or creative non-fiction stories, or poetry in undergraduate and graduate divisions. In the undergraduate division, Cole McGee won the only award for prose with “The Solution in the Furrows”.

Maggie Craddock won first place in the poetry section with “Puxico Soup” and “Yasgur’s Farm”. Mikiel Ghelieh won second place with “Carpet” while Jason Martinez won third with “Rita Hayworth…” and “Mexican Leather”.

Scott Williams’ “How Women Think” won in graduate division prose. James MacIndoe won first place in graduate division poetry with “My Grandfathers Desk” and “Taken,” Cathy Bergen took second with “The Neighbors”.

The contest was sponsored by Juan Morales and the Creative Writing Program, which also sponsors poetry readings, a weekly writing workshop and produces the campus literary publication, Tempered Steel.