Area High School Students
Win James Jones Literary Society
Essay Contest

Winners of the first annual James Jones Literary Society Valentine's Day essay contest at Marshall and Robinson high schools, based on the Jones short story, "The Valentine," have been announced. The short story tells the story of a young boy setting out to save the money for a box of Valentine candy for a girl who hardly knows he exists and the humiliation he feels from her rejection after he finally hands her the box at school on Valentine's Day and then runs to the cloakroom to hide his embarrassment.

MHS senior Cody Hutchinson was awarded $50 and a certificate for writing the winning essay; and RHS student Ashtin Blagrave has been awarded $75 and a certificate for her winning essay. The prizes are based on the number of total entries. Ten or more entries from a school, producing five finalists, would garner $75 for first place, $50 for second place and $25 for third place with the other two finalists receiving an honorable mention certificate. With fewer than five entries from one school, the only prize is $50 for first place.

"I am proud of the three students who accepted the challenge of expressing feelings regarding the James Jones short story," MHS principal John Hasten wrote when he submitted the school's entries. "I found the story interesting and the responses well done."

RHS English teacher Janelle Oxford assigned the story to one of her classes and invited James Jones Literary Society honorary board member Helen Howe to speak to the class. Howe, a retired English teacher from Lincoln Trail College (LTC), taught the Valentine Day story in her classes for years and was an early friend of James Jones.

"(Students) continued talking about your visit with us even yet today!" Oxford wrote Howe several days later. "These students from Robinson experienced James Jones firsthand through your stories and insight into his work and life. I am excited to read my students' essays -- so many fell in love with 'The Valentine.'"

Howe was excited about the contest and the reception she received, too.

"It was certainly a pleasant experience for me," she said. "I was treated with much respect and appreciation by both the teacher and her class. I'm looking forward to awarding the prizes."

Besides Hutchinson and Blagrave, who will also receive a year's membership in the JJLS and have their winning essays published in the society's newsletter and possibly in local newspapers, Chris Shane Maurer and Lindsay England submitted entries from Marshall High School; and Matthew Miller from Robinson High School received $50 and a certificate for second place; Jason Holtzhouser, received $25 and a certificate for third place; and Snow Rush and Andrew Hill received honorable mentions for their entries.

Hutchinson and Blagrave will also be invited to read their winning essays at the Virginia Theatre in Champaign on Nov. 11 at the annual James Jones Symposium, where the annual $10,000 First Novel Fellowship will be awarded. The Society has given the latter award to talented, unpublished fiction writers for the past 13 years, with 11 of them resulting in the publication of their novel with major publishing houses.

In keeping with James Jones and his mentor Lowney Handy's support and encouragement of promising new writers, the James Jones Literary Society has recently teamed up with the Illinois State Library's Illinois Center for the Book (ICB) to co-sponsor its Emerging Writers competition. The James Jones Short Story Contest will soon be announced on the Center for the Books' Web site and will have an early summer deadline.  Winning writers will be announced and awards presented on Nov. 18 at the ICB's annual Book Fair at the Gwendolyn Brooks State Library in Springfield, on which James Jones' name is etched in stone.

The $500 James Jones Creative Writing Award at Lincoln Trail College will soon be expanded to include more residents of Clark and Crawford counties, as well. Details will be announced for that contest in the near future.

"My father would be pleased about these contests in his name to support and encourage young writers," said novelist Kaylie Jones, the late author's daughter and a board member of the Society. "And he'd particularly be happy about 'The Valentine' contest because the story was one of his favorites."