This year the Provincial Office was again overwhelmed by submissions to the Student Achievement Awards in honour of Marion Drysdale. This year’s theme of Mirror Mirror inspired students to explore the topic through prose, poetry, painting and video.

The eight provincial award winners will be officially announced at AMPA during a ceremony featuring the traditional video and will be presented with awards of $1,000 each. For a sneak peek at the provincial winners, please read below.

In the Prose and Poetry Division, Nader Elshawish of Westminster Secondary School in London, was the winner of the Intermediate Academic category, with the short story Amour-Propre. With two characters, the main character and the mirror, this was an interesting and very visual take on the theme with a slip into the darkness of the mirror character in the end.

Nick Boudreau of North Hastings High School in Bancroft, claimed the Intermediate Applied/Essential category with his story Reflections—In Your Eyes. Nick presents an intimate look at his struggle as a child with a very serious injury through a short story that reveals to the reader, with humour and a thoughtful reflection, who he is inside.

Grace Sabutsch, a student at Belle River District High School in Belle River, won in the Senior University category for her short story, Storms of Memory. A beautiful, well-written and poignant story about Alzheimer’s, which reflects on the challenges of the disease and the struggle to remember, with a surprise end twist.

In the College/Workplace category, Danni Maxwell, of Bayridge Secondary School in Kingston, won for her poem, Mirror Girls, a structurally interesting poem showing two sides of the self as light and dark. This beautifully-written reflection was visually interesting as well.

Isabelle Dufour, of Vankleek Hill Collegiate Institute in Vankleek Hill, won the French Writing category with her poem, Une dimension de moins. The poem speaks of looking for the beauty within and knowing that you have a choice in what you see.

The Intermediate Visual Arts category was won by Allaura Langford of Peterborough Alternative Continuing Education at PCVS, for her work entitled Finding Peace. It’s a beautiful piece in acrylic and watercolour expressing the search for inner peace.

Myshalla Grant, of Geraldton Composite High School in Geraldton, was the winner of the Senior Visual Arts category with her work entitled Walking the Line. The line is drawn between the reflection of beauty of the forest landscape and the busy cityscape using two different media.

Finally, the winner of the Digital Arts Category was Kirsten Rowe and Colby Koopman, of Ajax High School, for their video, Reflections. A beautifully edited struggle between a critical view of what we see in the mirror and a more positive and accepting reflection.

This year, we also had two honourable mentions for our Provincial Winners category. These winners will be sent a certificate and congratulations for their considerable effort. They are:

Category A-2—Intermediate, 9-10 Applied/Essential

Region 3: Whole Class (ESL DOI), Galt Collegiate Institute and Vocational School, District 24, Waterloo. An amazing entry of poetry through the eyes of ESL students finding their place in a new country.

Category B-2—Visual Arts, Senior, 11-12

Region 3: Dylan Taylor, Glendale High School, District 11, Thames Valley. Incredibly constructed with an extreme amount of detail, this wood sculpture showed the reflection as an almost time travel piece.