Each year since 1981, The University of Alaska and the Anchorage Daily News have teamed up to hold a statewide creative writing and poetry contest.

This year, the winner in the poetry competition, for 4^th through 6^th grade was Cassidy Race of Talkeetna Elementary. Race is now in 7^th grade, but was a 6^th grader when she entered the contest in April.

Her winning poem, Thoughts, was part of KTNA’s special on the writing, reading and poetry lessons that Talkeetna resident Ed Craver taught last spring at Talkeetna Elementary.

Cassidy said her mother, Sarah, broke the news to her, “Cassidy, I have some wonderful news, she said, when I got home”  Race said,”…oh my gosh I won this!”

Cassidy says she didn’t think about how many she was competing against, but she was happy with her work and wanted to share.  She said,

“I wasn’t really thinking about how many were entering.  I had a great poem I want to share it with the world.”

She thinks she’d like to write more, but where does one go if one starts out on top? When asked if she’ll continue to write she seems a bit dubious, “I’d like to (keep writing) but I don’t know if I can do another poem as good as this one”

There were a number of categories in the contest -  fiction  and  non fiction, with 3 age levels, poetry with 4 age levels, as well as a story category for small children.  The grand prize winner this year was Cecilia Worth of Homer.

The creative writing and poetry contest is held annually each spring with winners announced in summer.

listen to the full story:

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

in tka. Im sd.