This past weekend, the prestigious National Scholastic Art & Writing Awards competition released its Northeast Regional winners. JKHA/RKYHS is proud to announce that 42 students from RKYHS and 26 JKHA Middle School students earned a total of 74 prestigious Gold Key, Silver Key or Honorable Mention awards for their writing submissions to the regional competition and one student received a Silver Key for his photography submission. All Gold and Silver Key winners’ work will continue on to the national contest, which will be evaluated and judged by world-renowned artists and writers in the coming months.

Alumni of this prestigious award whose talent was first discovered in their middle and high school years include famous writers and artists such as Andy Warhol, Sylvia Plath, Joyce Carol Oates, Richard Avedon, Truman Capote, Cy Twombly, John Updike, Stephen King, Zac Posen and Lena Dunham.

“We are tremendously proud of all of our students for this remarkable accomplishment,” commented Ms. Diane Bohs, RKYHS English chair. “Additionally, we commend all of our JKHA/RKYHS English teachers who demand excellence from our students, and encourage and nurture student writers to find their voices.”

“While we appreciate our students’ talent routinely as their teachers, it’s extraordinarily gratifying for us to see our students’ talents validated publicly and through such a prestigious competition that reserves awards for the strongest and most compelling works in the region,” commented Ms. Ariel Levenson, director of humanities for the JKHA Middle School. “As teachers, it’s validating as well to see that our students’ winning pieces were often works our students had written and worked on in our Humanities classrooms through assignments we designed specifically to nurture and grow our students’ creative abilities.”