KET

News release 

KET has announced the winners of its 2017 Young Writers Contest. Kamryn Hahn of Danville, a student at Woodlawn Elementary School, was named the first place winner for grade 5 with her story titled “Lost Girl”.

The annual contest encourages creative expression and literacy development, by inviting students in kindergarten through eighth grade to submit original illustrated stories, short stories and poetry.

This year, KET received more than 900 submissions, representing more than 160 schools.

“KET congratulates every student who submitted an entry into our Young Writers Contest, said Tonya Crum, KET’s senior director of education. “Our team – and our guest judges – were impressed by the creativity and talent evident in the stories and poems we received.”

The top three winners in each grade are listed below. Full-color versions of the winning K-3rd grade illustrated stories and 4th-8th grade short story/poetry entries are available online at KET.org/writerscontest.

KET’s 2017 contest entries were judged by Crystal Wilkinson, winner of the 2016 Earnest J. Gaines Prize for Literary Excellence and a writing instructor at Berea College and Spalding University; Frank X Walker, former poet laureate of Kentucky, University of Kentucky writing instructor and co-founder of the Affrilachian Poets; and award-winning poet and novelist Diane Gilliam of Ohio, whose works have been influenced by her family’s roots in the coal communities of Eastern Kentucky and West Virginia.

KET is Kentucky’s largest classroom, serving more than one million people each week via television, online and mobile. Learn more about Kentucky’s preeminent public media organization on Twitter @KET and @EducationKET; on Facebook at facebook.com/KET; and at KET.org.