Fri, 22 Jan 2010 11:32:38 +0000

2009 Fairfield & Litchfield County Champions with Western Connecticut State University President James Schmotter and CSU System Chancellor David Carter Thursday night, from left to right: Kevin Redmond, Clarissa Burch, Emma Lowenberg and Amanda Ball.
-- Photo by J Thompson Pease

WestConn Young Writers Results
APRIL 23, 2009

NEWS FROM THE CONNECTICUT YOUNG WRITERS TRUST:
DANBURY, CT, April 23, 2009 -- Young poets and writers from Fairfield and Litchfield counties were announced as regional champions Thursday night in the 2009 Connecticut Young Writers Competition. They include the first home school county champion in the program's 12-year history.

During ceremonies at Western Connecticut State University, the quartet was among 45 poets and writers honored as county finalists.

The poetry county champions are: Amanda Ball, 17, of Greenwich Academy, for her poem, "Snapshots Denied;" and Kevin Redmond, 17, of Torrington High School, for his poem, "The Cold Stare Of Infinity."

The prose county champions are: Emma Lowenberg, 16, of the Lowenberg Home School in Redding, for her story, "Bernard;" and Clarissa Burch, 15, of New Milford High School, for her story, "Missing You."

The competition has inspired the participation of over 580 students this year -- the third highest number of entries in the competition's 12 years -- and is sponsored by IMPAC and the Connecticut State University System.

County champions for Hartford and Tolland were announced Monday during ceremonies at Central Connecticut State University.

They are: Cara Dorris, 15, of Glastonbury High School, for her poem, "hors de Paris;" Jamie Phillips, 17, of E.O. Smith High School, for her poem, "Longevity;" Leah Shafer, 16, of Simsbury High School, for her story, "Snap;" and Jessica Ruman, 17, of Rockville High School, for her story, "Photo."

The county champions each received $500 checks and were invited to the annual statewide ceremony and celebration May 31 at Mark Twain House & Museum in Hartford. Resuming a long-standing practice, the state champions in prose and poetry will receive additional cash awards during the annual celebration.

Since, 1998, the Trust has given more than $170,000 to Connecticut's best young writers. Another $4,000 will be distributed next week.

About 6,000 students have participated in the program since 1998.

Two more regional ceremonies are scheduled:
*Monday, April 27, at Southern Connecticut State University in New Haven, for Middlesex and New Haven counties; and
*Tuesday, April 28, at Eastern Connecticut State University in Willimantic, for New London and Windham counties.

Danbury News Times Features Regional Contenders In Young Writers Competition

MEDIA CONTACTS:
Andy Thibault, Connecticut Young Writers Trust, tntcomm82@cs.com, 860-690-0211
Terri Raimondi, CSUS Public Relations, raimondit@ct.edu, 860-493-0040

IMPAC-Connecticut State University System
Young Writers Trust
231 Beach St.
Litchfield, CT 06759

* 800-814-6931 * Fax- 860-567-9119
* tntcomm82@cs.com

CSU System Young Writers Page

Young Writers Trust

The Young Writers Trust is continuing to accept sponsorships for the annual celebration. Recent donations have been received from Vincent Michael Valvo, Group Publisher, The Warren Group [Commercial Record]; the Raap & Vigeant families, Village Pub & Restaurant, Litchfield; Franz Douskey, professor at Gateway Community College in New Haven and President Emeritus of IMPAC University, Punta Gorda, FL; Dr. David Carter, the CSU System Chancellor; Dr. Joseph Bentivegna of Rocky Hill, the eye surgeon and novelist; Dr. William Cibes, the CSU System Chancellor Emeritus; Pat Steier of PS Art Gallery, Litchfield; Anny Gentilin of Charleston, S.C.; Dr. Lauren Doninger, professor at Gateway Community; Fran and Michael Keilty of the Hickory Stick Book Shop, Washington Depot; Ted Murphy of E.J. Murphy Realty, Litchfield; Attorney Jack Horak of Reid & Riege, Hartford; Attorney Tim Moynahan of Moynahan & Minnella, Waterbury; novelist Denning Powell of West Hartford; Attorney Bill Crowe of Mayo Crowe, Hartford; David and Ginger Dean of Litchfield County Commerical, Torrington; and Jeff Lalonde of Torrington Savings Bank. In addition, the Trust has received a number of substantial pledges for the annual celebration from long-time sponsors.

SPONSORSHIPS
Business Card Ads in Program, $250;
County Award Co-Sponsors, $500.
* The Trust has also gratefully accepted
donations in smaller denominations.

Click below on invitation to annual celebration
@ Mark Twain House & Museum ..

The Speaker of the Federal House of Representatives, Mr. Dimeji Bankole, inhabits his own separate planet. Astronomers are yet to find a name for this strange planet. What is certain is that the said planet afflicts its sole inhabitant with a permanent disconnect from reality syndrome on the one hand and a remarkable ability to make a bad situation worse on the other hand. In this planet, they have a certain way of doing things that I suggest we call ‘Angophilia’.

Anytime Mr. Bankole opens his mouth to explain the frequent scandals that cluster on him like ants on a cube of sugar, he ends up making the situation worse through a combination of carelessness, insensitive talk, and cluelessness unbecoming of a man of his educational pedigree. I am seriously beginning to wonder what exactly he did at Oxford. I am unable to reconcile so much periodic obtuseness with an Oxford education.

Mr. Bankole has just cleared the air on the raging controversy over the Ali Baba travel budget that he and his corrupt colleagues in the House hang around our necks annually: “There are 360 members of this House, all of them have five aides, that is 1800; then you have 2000 staff and members of management. Those are the people that spend the money for travels. This includes BTA, the oversight functions we are doing, it includes your accommodation when you travel inside and outside Nigeria. That’s about 4,000 people - 4,000 not Dimeji Bankole! And the figure is not N52 billion, its N21 billion per year.” Thank God! I feel so much better already! It feels so good to know that the bunch of mediocre lawmakers messing up our country spend “only” N21 billion per year – and not N52 billion – on their largely useless domestic and foreign trips. Is Dimeji Bankole for real? Did it occur to him for a second that he was giving us Ango Abdullahi all over again? As Vice Chancellor of Ahmadu Bello University in the mid-1980s, Professor Ango Abdullahi had been annoyed that newspapers were reporting that several students had been killed by the police during one of the most horrific alutas in the history of the University. “Only two students died o”, Professor Ango had comforted outraged Nigerians.

Only N21 billion! This is not the first time Mr. Bankole would be serving us this Ango Abdullahi soup. His penultimate scandal was whether he bought eighteen bullet-proof SUVs for a new convoy recently or not. His explanation? The cars were not bought this year o. They were bought last year and “only” two or three of them are bullet-proof o. As usual, that Angophilia was supposed to make us feel better. If I had my way, I would ban the word “only” from the Speaker’s vocabulary till he shows himself capable of using it without inflicting psychological violence on Nigerians.

As if pulling an Ango on us wasn’t bad enough, Mr. Bankole did more damage by reeling out statistics on the aides who “spend the money for travels.” Has anybody ever explained to the Speaker that Nigerians don’t exactly approve of the aides addiction of our unelected representatives? Does he subscribe to that wasteful culture that allows members of the National Assembly to hire a retinue of largely indolent aides to drain our scarce resources? And do all these Reps travel all the time, locally and internationally, with all five aides? What exactly is a Rep doing with more than two aides anyway? The only aide I see giving value for our money and injecting serious intellection into the public face of Bankole’s office is Chief Kayode Odunaro. Yet Bankole has other so-called media/communication aides replicating and triplicating Chief Odunaro’s duties.

Beyond this unspeakable culture of plunder, Nigerians need to worry that we have a Speaker who somehow thinks that it is a great idea to gloat publicly that each Representative spends about 390.000 dollars annually on trips alone! Bankole obviously thinks that we can afford it. Mind you, not all of these are foreign trips. This includes the so-called domestic “working trips” – a euphemism for weekend palm wine and bush meat relaxation treats in their villages – which they also bill to us as “miscellaneous” or “constituency” whatever!

I have said it once: give us Patricia Etteh. At least there was a limit to what we expected from the hairdresser and that makes her own plunder and incompetence somehow more psychologically tolerable than the irredeemable cluelessness we are getting from this Britico-accented, Oxford-educated man.