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POETRY OUT LOUD
2009 Student Recitation Competition
The Rubicon Theatre Company, located in the City of Ventura’s Downtown Cultural District, hosted the 2009 Poetry Out Loud County Competition on Thursday, February 19, 2009.
All public, private, and parochial high schools, as well as home schoolers, were urged to participate in the Poetry Out Loud: National Recitation Contest, a competition that engages high-school students in the presentation of poetry through memorization and performance. Competitions are held in schools, with the school winners then competing on the county level. The county winner then advances to the California state championship, and perhaps the national contest held in Washington, DC. in April 2009. The program was initiated by the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) and is sponsored
in California by the California Arts Council and facilitated in Ventura County by the Ventura County Arts Council. The
program encourages high school students to study and recite some of the richest language every written.
Thanks to generous support from SAGE in Thousand Oaks, our Poetry Out Loud program provided professional poets to work with teachers in the classroom through the VCAC and California Poets in the Schools. Nationally approved
educational materials and teachers guides were supplied free, and there is no fee to participate. Students make their selections from an anthology of hundreds of poems. For more information on how to participate in the 2010 Ventura County Poetry Out Loud program contact the Ventura County Arts Council at (805) 658-2213. General information can be found
at www.cac.ca.gov and www.poetryoutloud.org .
Well-know published poet – and Ventura resident – Marsha de la O served as Director of this year’s county competition. Participating students include: Conejo Valley High School, Thousand Oaks - Winner: Monique Phipps, Alternate: Steven Pruett; El Camino High School, Ventura - Winner: Hanna Aist, Alternate: Hannah Finch; Foothill High School, Ventura - Winner: Shannon Giammichele, Alternate: Trenton Pham; The High School at Moorpark College - Winner: Erin Westendorf, Alternate: Ray Libby; Moorpark High School - Winner: Arianna Sanchez, Alternate: Haifa Nesheiwat; Newbury Park High School - Winner: Sharika Vasudevan, Alternate: Kelsey Allen; Nordoff High School, Ojai - Winner: Jessica Volk, Alternate: Misha Morris; Pacifica High School, Oxnard - Winner: Erica Ming, Alternate: Bryant Jones; Royal High School,
Simi Valley - Winner: Patrick Brennan, Alternate: Rachel Eisner; Thousand Oaks High School - Winner:
Edward Treshinsky, Alternate: Jamie Smith; Westlake High School - Winner: Giuliana PeBonito, Alternate:
Veronica Robinson; and Home School/Ventura College - Winner: Laignee Barron
COUNTY COMPETITION JUDGES: Elena Brokaw, Director of Community Services, City of Ventura, Brynn Saito,
Poet & Editor, Sage Publications, Sandra Hunter, Moorpark College; Shelley Savren, Poet; Phil Taggart, Poet;
Accuracy Judge, Friday Lubina, Poet; and Prompter, Nereyda de la O, poet
HIGH SCHOOL TEACHERS: Julie Speetstra, Westlake; Mary C. DiNielli, Conejo Valley; Jennifer Kindred, Foothill;
Louise Hewitt, El Camino; Lucia Lemieux, Newbury Park; John Slade, Nordoff; Carrie Wolfe, Pacifica; Jean Svoboda,
Royal; Sarah Burns, Thousand Oaks; Kelli Burns, Jacqueline Powell, & Victoria Weiss, Moorpark; and Doreen Simpson
& Tim Needham, High School at Moorpark College.
POETS: Marsha de la O, Lucia Lemieux, Tim Cabrera, Tree Bernstein, Richard Newsham, Mary Sagala Verleur.
Contact the VCAC office (805) 658-2213 to get involved.
Teen wins county poetry contest
By Marjorie Hernandez, February 20, 2009,
Ventura County Star
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