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For Immediate Release
Contact: Yvonne Stahr, Programs Information Officer
603-271-0794, Yvonne.m.stahr@dcr.nh.gov

Concord, March 14, 2007…This Saturday, New Hampshire high school poetry champions and their alternates will be participating in the state finals of the Poetry Out Loud National Recitation Project at the Redfern Arts Center on Brickyard Pond, Keene State College.

Judges will be listening closely as high school winners recite the poems of their choice on Saturday, March 17, 2007. Two simultaneous semi-final competitions will begin at 10 a.m.. Then New Hampshire’s own novelist and humorist Rebecca Rule will emcee the four top scorers from each semi-final as they square off at 2:30 p.m. in the afternoon to determine who will represent New Hampshire at this year’s national championship to be held in Washington, DC, during the first week of May, 2007. The event is free and open to the public.

Last year, New Hampshire state champion Teal Van Dyck of Bow High School, finished second in the United States and walked off with a $10,000 scholarship as well as a large donation to the school’s library for the purchase of poetry books.

The next national winner could be one of the following NH high school poetry champions:

Plymouth Regional High School

• Champion: Molly McCahan
• Alternate Champion: Rachel Martin

John Stark High School

• Champion: Benjamin Wolf Lehr Meuser
• Alternate Champion: Mariah Brennan Clegg

Hopkinton Middle High School

• Champion:  Max Lanocha
• Alternate Champion:  Brittany Hill

Timberlane High School

• Champion:  Eve McCarthy
• Alternate Champion:  Holly Ange

Bow High School

• Champion: Alena Allegretti
• Alternate Champion: Lindsay Staples

Milford High School

• Champion: Joseph Harris
• Alternate Champion: Arienne Stearns

Gilford High School

• Champion: Gwen Crafts
• Alternate Champion: Ash Cotton

Cocheho Arts & Technology Academy

• Champion: Melissa Stevens
• Alternate Champion: Hannah Skelton

Pittsfield Middle High School

• Champion: Hannah Schmidt
• Alternate Champion: Victoria Duquette

Portsmouth High School

• Champion: Elisa Loeser
• Alternate Champion: Brendan Carpenter

Exeter High School

• Champion: Laura Messner
• Alternate Champion: Lilly Turmelle

Newmarket Junior/Senior High School

• Champion: Taj Phimansone
• Alternate Champion: Terry Shamis

Pembroke Academy

• Champion: Jennifer Lamontaigne
• Alternate Champion: Amanda Kruczynski

The Poetry Out Loud Project is a national program encouraging students to commit classic poetry to memory and performance. New Hampshire’s project, one of the 50 states participating, has over 4,000 students participating in 196 classrooms around the state. It is co-sponsored by the Poetry Foundation of Chicago, the National Endowment for the Arts, the New Hampshire State Council on the Arts, The Badger Fund of the New Hampshire Charitable Foundation, Toadstool Bookshops, the Poetry Society of New Hampshire, the New Hampshire Writers Project, the Arts Alliance of Northern NH, Keene State College’s Division of the Arts and Humanities, and The Frost Place.

Last updated: March 15, 2007