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Southern Ulster Times , Wednesday , November 22 , 2017
IN THIS ISSUE
Calendar .......................................... 12 Craig McKinney ................................ 9 Classifieds ...................................... 26 Crossword ...................................... 28 Highland .......................................... 19 Letters to the Editor ........................ 8 Marlboro ......................................... 18 Obituaries ...................................... 24 Opinion ............................................. 8 Police Blotter ................................... 4 Plattekill ........................................ 22 School News ................................... 20 Service Directory ........................... 30 Sports ............................................ 40
UNICO honors essay winners
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Marlborough UNICO President Nick Johannets is flanked by essay contest winners Heather Stelling ( L ) and Malak Serdah at a dinner held in their honor at the Ship Lantern Inn .
By MARK REYNOLDS mreynolds @ tcnewspaperscom
Each year the Marlborough chapter of the Italian Heritage organization , UNICO , sponsors an essay contest for 7th and 8th grade students . The two first place winners were recognized at a dinner that was held at the Ship Lantern Inn in Milton . They read their essays and each received a commemorative plaque and a check for $ 200 .
The 7th graders were asked to write about a region in Italy and had to describe its history , landscape , its unique culture and their relation to other regions of the country . The 8th graders were asked to write about the politician and patriot Camillo Benso di Cavour [ 1810-1861 ], who worked for the unification of Italy and became its first Prime Minister .
Malak Serdah was the 7th grade 1st Place winner and wrote about Umbria . It is located in central Italy and is one of twenty regions in the country . Serdah said she looked up the different regions in Italy “ and it was appealing to me and seemed different than the others .”
Serdah said she found Umbria interesting because it is not as modern as other areas in the country .
“ It is more old-timey even until today ,” she said .
Serdah has William Paltridge for Social Studies and says it is her favorite subject .
Heather Stelling , who was the 8th Grade , 1st Place winner , wrote about Camillo Benso di Cavour .
“ He was basically the brains of the operation and made it [ unification ] all come together ,” she said . “ I got into it because my ancestors on my Dad ’ s side came from an area close to where he was from [ Turin , Northern Italy ] and I thought that was really interesting .”
Stelling received the topic a month ago “ and slowly perfected it until I handed it in .” She found di Cavour a stimulating subject to write about because of the significant impact he had upon his country .
“ One person can change so many things ,” she said .
The essays were judged on creativity , originality , organization and presentation of ideas , development in relation to the topic , vocabulary , grammar , spelling and neatness . One of the judges , Dan Martuscello , said the names of the students are blacked out to avoid any bias and they are scored from 1 to 5 . He said there were a total of 21 essays reviewed . He said it was an interesting process and both of the winners submitted “ well written essays .”
UNICO President Nick Johannets congratulated both Serdah and Stelling and said there is a common thread among all of the essay winners .
“ They have the support of the parents and I think they deserve a round of applause ,” he said .
Johannets said UNICO receives a lot of support from the teachers and the students receive extra credit in Social Studies for participating .
Social Studies teacher Geoffrey Pesano thanked UNICO for sponsoring the annual Italian essay contest .
“ Its a great opportunity for students to work on their writing skills and on their Italian heritage ,” he said . “ The history of Marlborough , as you know , has a very deep Italian history and the girls that won today are very good students . Heather is a hard-working student and is conscientious about what she does and Malak , I ’ ve heard the exact same thing and I look forward to having you in my class next year and hopefully you enter the contest again and win again .”
In the 7th grade Jack Schlagle and Gabriella Williams were 2nd and 3rd place winners , respectively and in the 8th grade , Sophia Benanti and Katerina Calderone were 2nd and 3rd place winners , respectively . Second place received $ 100 and third place $ 50 .