Two Buckhannon Academy Elementary School students earned top honors in a five-state Garden Club poetry contest, and members of the Fred Brooks Garden Club came to the school cafeteria in May to celebrate the winners.
Second-grader Lynden Miller and fifth-grader Brandie Warner each won first place in their grade levels at the West Virginia Garden Club poetry contest and then went on to take first place again in the South Atlantic Region, which covers garden clubs in West Virginia, Virginia, Kentucky, North Carolina and South Carolina.
The contest, organized by the club’s Conservation Education Youth Committee, asked students to write a poem reflecting the theme “Plant Trees for the Next 100 Years.” Lynden and Brandie’s poems, both about trees and what they give back to the world around them, were submitted by the Fred Brooks Garden Club and advanced through the state and regional rounds.
Sally Miller Collins presented the awards and walked the students through just how far their poems had traveled.
“The garden club in West Virginia had a poetry contest, and these two entered that poetry contest, and Fred Brooks sent their poems to the State of West Virginia’s Garden Club,” Collins said. “There are 65 garden clubs in the state of West Virginia.”
Lynden’s poem placed first among all second-grade entries in West Virginia. Brandie’s placed first among all fifth-grade entries. From there, both poems advanced to the regional contest.
“The state said, we’re going to send their poems on to the regional. And the region is five states,” Collins said. “There are 636 garden clubs, because the weather is really nice in North Carolina and South Carolina, and they have lots of flowers. They can do lots of things.”
Both students won first place again at the regional level.
“You won first place in the region,” Collins told them. “Can you believe that you went to the South Atlantic region with those five states?”
Each student received certificates and cash prizes from both the state and regional garden clubs. Mark Shreve with Weyerhaeuser purchased pizza for the classes of the two winners.
“On behalf of a very proud Fred Brooks Garden Club, this is from us, and this is from our state, our state group, and our regional group,” Collins said as she handed out the awards. “We’re very, very proud of you. Good job.”
After the presentations, Josh Simons, assistant regional forester with the West Virginia Division of Forestry, spoke to the students about why trees matter in West Virginia.
“We got two people who wrote poems about planting trees, went to the state, went to the regional, and they won from West Virginia,” Simons said. “We have an abundant resource of trees, and a history of that industry providing things for the nation.”
Simons told the students that trees do more than supply lumber and paper.
“Where would the squirrels live? What would the deer eat? What would we breathe?” he said.
He pointed to gray squirrels as unlikely allies in keeping West Virginia’s forests growing, calling them “forest farmers” because they bury acorns in the fall and forget where they put them, leaving the seeds to sprout into new trees.
Simons closed with a word of encouragement to every student who entered a poem, not just the two winners.
“It takes a lot to stick your neck out writing something from the heart,” he said.
Lynden’s parents, Tim and Rodnitta Miller, were on hand for the celebration, along with his grandmother, Catherine Miller. Brandie’s parents, Joe and Stephanie Warner, attended as well.
