Nearly 150 students were honored for their talent in an annual poster and essay contest organized by the Orange County Alcohol and Drug Awareness Council on May 10.
The theme for this year’s contest was “Team up together, be drug-free forever,” which had attracted over 1,800 entries from nearly 20 schools in more than 10 school districts across the county.
“Awareness campaigns and events like this are important for so many reasons,” contest coordinator MaryAlice Kovatch said at the award ceremony at Paramount Theatre in Middletown.
“They give us the opportunity to provide information and share youth talent with our communities,” she added. “[We] will continue to do so as long as there are young people like you who want to make a difference.”
This was the 37th annual student talent contest held by the ADAC, or Alcohol and Drug Awareness Council.
Around 100 students in grades 1–12 won awards for their hand-drawn or digital poster designs, which visualized the annual themes by depicting drugs as harmful matters, joined hands for a common goal of a healthy lifestyle, and outdoor activities and sports as ways to help one stay away from drugs.
Scarlett Voight, a Pine Bush District fifth grader who won the top essay prize for the elementary school division, said that clubs and friends keep unhealthy addictions at bay.
“I have a lot of friends. They are always there for me when I need them. Yes, we have our fights, but we always work it out; it is usually just a little conflict, but we always agree to disagree,” she read her essay to the audience at the award ceremony.
“When I am with my friends, I get so caught up with them that I almost completely forget about my problems in the real world—I love it when that happens,” she said.
Harmony Christian School 12th grader Emma Koening, who won the top essay prize for high schoolers, said that addictions were rooted in the fundamental human desire to seek comfort.
“The idea of comfort is something all humanity strives for, yet it can easily end up becoming this unachievable desire that no action or item can satisfy,” she read her essay at the ceremony.
“Life as a whole is meant to be conquered through the hardships that make it up—there is no shortcut to happiness,” she said. “Despite this being the undeniable truth, so many individuals are turning away from character-building experiences for the sake of numbing pain.”
Among all participating schools, Anna S. Kuhl Elementary delivered the greatest number of essay entries—at 127—and its reading teacher, Catherine Stellato, was honored at the ceremony for starting the tradition of incorporating the contest as part of class assignments years ago.
Having been part of the annual contest for the past 34 years, ADAC Executive Director James Conklin said he had seen student winners go on to become art teachers and illustrators.
“Contest winners today will find yourself, in 5 years, 10 years, and 15 years, somewhere else,” he said at the ceremony. “And we know it is going to be super positive, we know it is going to be somewhere important, and we know you are going to be making changes in your community.”
ADAC representatives also thanked contest judges, event sponsors, and several representatives of public officials at the award ceremony.
