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St. Michael Students Earn Pierpont Essay Prizes

Photo by Linda Comins Winners of the West Virginia Independence Hall Foundation’s writing contest are St. Michael Parish School students, from left, Margaret Hartzell, second place; Gino Gentile, third place, and Hunter Midcap, first place. Offering congratulations are foundation members, back row from left, Pattie Hershey, Lynne Exley, Dr. Joseph Laker and Dr. Leslie Liedel.

Three students from St. Michael Parish School in Wheeling have captured the top prizes in the West Virginia Independence Hall Foundation’s eighth-grade writing contest.

Monetary awards and certificates were presented to the winning students during a ceremony in the historic courtroom of West Virginia Independence Hall in Wheeling Tuesday night.

The winners were Hunter Midcap, first place, $100 prize; Margaret Hartzell, second, $50, and Gino Gentile, third, $25.

In addition to the monetary prize, the top winner’s school earns the privilege of displaying a traveling statuette in a place of honor for one year. The trophy is a miniature version of the Francis H. Pierpont statue that stands next to the hall at the corner of 16th and Market streets.

Other finalists in this year’s writing contest were Brynna Jackson from Corpus Christi Parish School and Joey Carter, Ian Guggenheimer, Andrew Kamorowski, Alaina Zende, Sydney Mansuetto and Lucia Perri, all from St. Michael Parish School.

The teachers who worked with the top 10 finalists were Marcy Hartzell and Adriana Wolf, both from St. Michael, and Candice Lewis of Corpus Christi.

Lynne Exley, chair of the foundation’s education committee, said the writing contest was open to all eighth-grade students in public and private schools in Ohio County. She said 54 essays were submitted from five schools: Warwood, Linsly, St. Vincent de Paul, Corpus Christi and St. Michael.

The essays were judged anonymously by the foundation’s contest committee members: Exley, Jon-Erik Gilot, Pattie Hershey, Dr. Joseph Laker, Dr. Leslie Liedel and DeAnna Taylor.

Each year, the theme for the essay contest is taken from a quote by Pierpont, who served as governor of the Restored Government of Virginia during the Civil War. He was a leading force in the effort to keep western Virginia as part of the Union.

This year’s theme came from Pierpont’s message to the Virginia Assembly in Wheeling on July 2, 1861. In that speech, he stated, “I need not remark to you, gentlemen, how fatal the attempted disseverance of the Union must prove to all our material interests. Secession and annexation to the south would cut off every outlet for our productions.”

Midcap read his winning essay during Tuesday’s program. He wrote that western Virginia’s passageways for trade would have been blocked if the region had remained with the rest of Virginia when it seceded from the Union to join the Confederacy. He also stated that western Virginia would have faced “an unequal distribution of taxes” had it stayed with Virginia.

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