Page Hosts First Arts and Literature Festival
On March 24th, 2019, Page High School hosted its first Arts and Literature Festival. Most of the planning was put together by Mrs. Besecker. The purpose of the festival was to help raise money for the Arts and English departments, while at the same time bringing awareness to the lack of funding these departments receive.
When you first got to the school you are faced with an array of options of food to choose from, as there were multiple food stands and food trucks in the main parking lot. After that you walk in and go to the cafeteria to see the arts and crafts students and staff are selling. We saw crochet stands, home made jewelery, trinkets, bookmarks, paintings and other forms of art work. Once you got your fill of the crafts for sale you make your way to the small gym and can see all of the art work and poetry students and staff submitted. Students and staff had the option of submitting photography, artwork, different genres of short stories, and poetry. There was also a contest held for the literature portion of the festival. In the big gym you had the option of “buying” a ticket or donating to see the performance part of the festival. We had singers, dancers, our own jazz band perform, along with our playmakers give us a sneak peak into the show they were to perform. At the performances we were also graced by Whitney Thore, star of the reality TV show My Big Fat Fabulous Life and a Page graduate of 2002. Thore danced with the cheerleaders in the performance part of the festival. The festival planners also put together an online auction which the proceedings will go to our arts and English departments.
Back to the literature contest portion of the festival. The judge stated “I was excited and honored to read the poetry, short stories, and other submittals by Page students. There was not one poem or short story that did not have some value. Those entries chosen as the top entries stood out because of their freshness – meaning their originality – the seed of creation; honest observation – the nutrient of creation and consistency – the structure that holds the poem/story together (like soil).” One entry per student was selected. Our winners are as follows:
- Poetry – 6 – 8 winners
- Jade Boone
- Will Reigis
- Carl Essa
- Kathryn Volkova
- Channing Noerr
- Isabelle Moore
- Rawan Mohammed
- Ruhama Bekele
- Short Stories/Other – 5
- Kat Tokazowski
- Declan Schoomaker
- Ella Bode
- Natalie Brown
- Hannah Godwin
- Mystery Thriller – 1
- Skyler Hitchins
- Sci Fi – 1
- Briella Kenyon
Congratulations to our winners and thank you to those who participated in the festival. We hope to see even more next year.
