MKA Junior wins coveted Gold Key Award

Junior Chelsea Strickland has won the coveted Gold Key Regional Award in the Scholastic Art & Writing Awards competition, and now moves onto the National Awards level.

Founded in 1923, The Scholastic Art & Writing Awards, sponsored by the Alliance for Young Artists and Writers, is the oldest, longest-running, most prestigious recognition program for creative teenagers in the United States.  Eighty-one regional affiliates review more than 140,000 submissions of art and writing from students across the country using the criteria of originality, technical skill and the emergence of a personal vision or voice.

Chelsea submitted a collection of three poems, written in English and Spanish, that shared the theme of Hispanic culture, and that will now be judged at the national level.  “I’d encourage other people who are talented in both art and writing to take part in competitions like this,” notes Chelsea, “because you never know how you’ll end up doing. I never expected to receive such an amazing reward  - I was, and still am, beyond excited!”