Marianne Bartman
Judge Memorial High School
SALT LAKE CITY - Jeong Wook Park, a Judge Memorial Catholic High School sophomore, was named Utah's state winner in the annual Letters about Literature contest sponsored by the Library of Congress. His fellow sophomore, Grace Best-Devereux, placed third in the statewide competition.
This is the second year in a row that the first- and third-place honorees have hailed from Judge Memorial. Last year's honorees were Lizz Graham, first, and Jake Winter, third.
"I really didn't expect to do very well with my essay," said Park. "But I was really excited to learn that of all the entries in the state, mine came in first place."
Park wrote his letter to Paulo Coelho, author of "The Alchemist."
"To me, the book was about philosophy and about life. I wrote to Mr. Coelho about how the story affected my life," he said.
Park, a native Korean who has been in the United States for three years, admits to having difficulty with English literature.
"I really do love to read, but reading in my native Korean and making the transition to English has been a little hard," he said. "I especially like poetry and literature and I'm working hard to become more comfortable reading in English."
Park is a member of the concert band at Judge, playing flute. He would like to go into medicine, possibly becoming a psychiatrist.
"Mr. Baird, my English teacher, really makes the class a lot of fun. He makes literature easy to understand and really wants us to understand what the author is telling us," said Park.
Third-place finisher Grace Best-Devereux addressed her letter to Sara Gruen, who wrote the book "Flying Changes."
"The book is about horseback riding, and because I've been riding forever, it was very interesting for me," said Best-Devereux. "I had read the book over the summer, just for enjoyment, and thought it was the perfect one for me to use for this contest. I love to read and would maybe like to major in English literature when I get to college. Either that or medicine; we'll see."
In total, Judge had five of the 26 finalists in the level three category. In addition to Park and Best-Devereux, Judge finalists were Hayley Dahlhauser, Christina Jones and Emily Katherine Strand.
An Awards Reception was held on May 8, in the Level 4 Conference Room of the City Library.
Young Adult novelist and past Utah Book Award winner Emily Wing-Smith was the featured speaker. Wing-Smith won the David O. McKay essay contest while attending Brigham Young University. Her writing has also appeared in popular magazines for children and young adults. She holds an MFA from Vermont College.
The Center for the Book in the Library of Congress, in partnership with Target Stores and in cooperation with affiliate state centers for the book, invited readers in grades 4 through 12 to enter Letters about Literature, a national reading-writing contest. Students were asked to write a personal letter to an author, living or dead, from any genre - fiction or nonfiction, contemporary or classic - explaining how that author's work changed the student's way of thinking about the world or themselves.
The contest featured three competition levels: Level I for children in grades 4 through 6, Level II for grades 7 and 8 and Level III, grades 9 -12. Coordinated by English faculty member Jeff Baird, a number of Judge Memorial sophomores submitted entries. As the state winner, Park now moves on to compete in the national finals.
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