Contact: Sasha Steinberg

STARKVILLE, Miss.—Six Mississippi State students recently received special awards for their participation in the university’s annual Maroon Edition essay contest.

The competition is sponsored by Maroon and Write, the university’s quality enhancement program to boost students’ writing skills. First-place winners received $500; second- and third-place, $300 and $100, respectively.

Essay subjects come from Maroon Edition, the annual common reading program for incoming MSU freshmen. Upperclassmen and graduate students, along with faculty and staff members, also are encouraged to join in reading the selected book and participating in related activities.

MSU accounting alumnus and best-selling author John Grisham’s “Calico Joe” was both the reading selection and essay contest topic for the competition. Grisham delivered the keynote address at Mississippi State’s 2018 Fall Convocation.

First-place winners read their essays at Mitchell Memorial Library during a celebratory luncheon organized by the university’s Center for Teaching and Learning.

Maroon and Write Co-Director Ann Spurlock, an instructor in the College of Arts and Sciences’ Department of English, said all of this year’s winning essays will be archived and available for viewing in the MSU Libraries’ Institutional Repository.

Freshman winners include:

FIRST—Garrett C. Smith, now a sophomore political science major from Starkville.

SECOND—Nicholas T. Russell, a freshman undeclared major from Petal.

THIRD—Craig A. Schexnaydre, now a sophomore civil engineering major from Covington, Louisiana.

Upperclassman winners include:

FIRST—Justin R. Williams, a senior electrical engineering major from Meridian.

SECOND—Natalene Vonkchalee, a senior microbiology major from Ridgeland.

THIRD—Madison L. Martindale, a senior biological sciences major from Walnut.

For more about Maroon and Write, visit www.qep.msstate.edu; Maroon Edition, www.maroonedition.msstate.edu; Center for Teaching and Learning, www.ctl.msstate.edu.

MSU is Mississippi’s leading university, available online at www.msstate.edu.