Hart County Charter System Announces System-Wide Young Georgia Authors Winners

The Hart County Charter System is proud to announce this year’s system-wide winners of the Young Georgia Authors writing competition.

The purpose of the Young Georgia Authors (YGA) writing competition is to encourage students to develop an enthusiasm for and expertise in their writing, to provide a context to celebrate their writing successes, and to recognize student achievement in arts and academics.

“The Young Georgia Authors competition provides an outlet for students to demonstrate reading and writing skills they have learned in the classroom. These skills will benefit them throughout their lives. As a district, we are thankful for the instruction provided to our students. Our teachers are striving to intentionally grow all students as readers and writers,” Superintendent Jennifer Carter said. “Congratulations to all of our district winners as well as to the teachers and schools they represent! I am excited to see what the next level of competition holds for Hart County.”

Each school in the Hart County Charter System achieved a system-wide winner in this year’s contest.

Writings are entered into the state-level competition by winning at the tiered levels: the local school, district, RESA District, and the state.

Unlike many writing competitions, YGA does not provide a prompt to which students must respond or provide any other boundaries to their genre choice or creativity beyond a 1900-word maximum length. Entries may include Short Stories, Poetry, Essays/Literary Criticism/Analysis, Journalism, Academic/Research Reports, Personal Narratives, or Any Other Original Student Writing.

This prestigious competition has been engaging Georgia students for more than two decades and is open to any student currently enrolled in Georgia public schools, grades K-12. The competition is sponsored by the Georgia Language Arts Supervisors (GLAS) and the Georgia RESA Network with support from the Georgia Department of Education.

Below is the full list of winners from each school:

Kindergarten Tori McLendon Hartwell Elementary School
First Grade Lily Seawright North Hart Elementary School
Second Grade Cecilia Le South Hart Elementary School
Third Grade Thien My Luong South Hart Elementary School
Fourth Grade Slate Martin North Hart Elementary School
Fifth Grade Kaydance Kyle Hartwell Elementary School
Sixth Grade Xavier Johnson Hart County Middle School
Seventh Grade Zoe Chitwood Hart County Middle School
Eighth Grade Katherine Ripley Hart County Middle School
Ninth Grade Sariah Martin Hart County High School
Tenth Grade Iyannah Morring Hart County High School
Eleventh Grade Au’brionna McIntosh Hart County High School
Twelfth Grade Fatima Rangel Hart County High School