Heritage Middle School eighth-grader Lexi Sawyer may be the new student in town, but she is already gaining national attention. Out of 2,500 essay entries from across the country, she won first place in the national Courage in My Community essay contest.
Heritage Middle School eighth-grade English teacher Nicole Walker congratulates one of her students, eighth-grader Lexi Sawyer, for winning the national Courage in My Community essay contest through Cambium Learning Technologies and the Max Warburg Courage Curriculum.“I only entered two students’ essays,” said Heritage Middle eighth-grade English teacher Nicole Walker. “I knew Lexi struggled with the move and trying to fit in, so this was encouraging for her.”
In an upcoming eighth-grade awards ceremony at Heritage, officials from Boston will present Lexi with first place prizes including an iPod Touch and a Kurzweil3000, which is designed to improve reading speed. Walker will also accept a Kindle Touch 3G for being the award winner’s teacher.
“I was really excited,” said Lexi, of finding out she won the contest. “I wrote about moving here; how my dad and my mom handled it and how it took courage. We moved from Michigan near Lansing.”
She said it took a lot of courage for her dad after losing his job to find a new one and move his family to Ringgold. He now works at Gill Industries Inc. in Trenton. His previous job in Michigan was at Spartan Motors making Army vehicles and fire trucks.
“He was never down about moving, and put our family first,” said Lexi. “We moved here one year ago.”
Lexi grew up in Ohio until age 8, then she moved to Michigan and lived there for four years.
“Everything’s different here – the people and the weather,” she said. “It was a big change. Personalities are different and styles are different. People are a lot more friendly here. People in Michigan did not talk to you if you were neighbors with them.”
She said when she enrolled in classes at Heritage Middle last fall, her mother promised the family would not move again.
“If I’m ever sad, I encourage myself through writing,” said Lexi. “I vent that way. I write in journals about everything. I’m on my sixth journal.”
Lexi said despite the transition of moving that she has found new friends. She is enrolling for fall classes at Heritage High School, where she plans to take journalism, English and broadcasting classes.
“I want to be a journalist so that I can travel and write,” she said.
“We foster a writing environment here,” said Walker. “We want students to think and write their thoughts out clearly. We have a lot of good writers at Heritage Middle.”