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               Discovery Elementary fourth-grader Rylee Smith, Stockdale Elementary fifth-grader Tiffany Yeh and Endeavour Elementary sixth-grader Andrew Beard emerged as Bank of America Essay and Speech Contest winners among 29 of the best essayist-speakers who competed in the annual event held  May 8 at University Square in Bakersfield. Each convinced the judges they should be their grade level champion by delivering a three-to-five minute speech from an essay they had previously written on the topic, “Who Is Your Modern Day Hero.”

Approximately 600 Kern County students had written classroom essays on the topic. Each county English and language arts region could nominate only one classroom essay per grade level. The top 29 essayists, as determined by a panel of judges from the Kern County Superintendent of Schools’ (KCSOS) Curriculum, Instruction and Accountability department, were picked to compete in the speech portion of the contest. Bank of America’s South Sierra Valley Market and KCSOS sponsor the competition, which awards savings bonds in the amounts of $100 for first place, $75 for second and $50 for third.     

            Smith said priest, Father Craig Harrison, was her hero. A man who Smith characterized as “conducting at least eight funerals a week and at each one he finds a unique way to touch each person and ease their pain. He even adopted seven children when no one else would look after them,” Smith said.

            Yeh said she picked President Ronald Reagan because, “He grew the economy and ended the Cold War. President Reagan signed the treaty to eliminate all intermediate nuclear missiles, and he told Soviet President Gorbachev to tear down the Berlin Wall. Two years later it was torn down giving the East German people their freedom. He made our country stronger, prouder and greater than ever before, and that is why he is my hero.” 

Beard picked Pope John Paul II as his hero. As Beard put it, “He was a man of peace who brought hope to all.” Beard talked of the pope as being the first to visit a Jewish synagogue in his efforts to unite all people, and how through his own life he “embraced suffering, regarding it as a gift.” The sixth-grade winner pointed out that the Pope even had love for the gunman who tried to assassinate him. Beard ended by saying, “He brought the power of love to a troubled world.”

Discovery Elementary sixth-grader Annie Bardet created some other drama. Bardet finished second in her grade level, narrowly missing out on becoming a winner in every category for every year she competed, having previously won as a fourth and fifth-grader. Other second place finishers were Columbia Elementary fifth-grader Madelynne Heiss, and Reagan School fourth-grader Manooshree Patel. Earning third place honors were Columbia Elementary fourth-grader Johnathon Cordova, Thorner School fifth-grader Annie Murrell and Thorner School sixth grader Jaci Victoria Brandolini.

2008 Bank of America Essay/Speech Contest Finalists

1st — Rylee Smith, Discovery Elementary

2nd — Manooshree Patel, Reagan School

3rd — Johnathon Cordova, Columbia Elementary

1st — Tiffany Yeh, Stockdale Elementary

2nd — Madelynne Heiss, Columbia Elementary

3rd — Annie Murrell, Thorner School

1st — Andrew Beard, Endeavour Elementary

2nd — Annie Bardet, Discovery Elementary

3rd — Jaci Victoria Brandolini, Thorner School