Playing for your lunch

Emil Michael and Valerie Persons

A couple of weeks ago I got a call from Emil Michael's Creative Writing teacher, Valerie Persons. I love Mrs. Persons. She is so encouraging and just an awesome teacher. She had called to tell me Emil Michael had won first place in the Watterson-Timberlake Non-fiction Writing competition for the State and a cash prize of $250. Yeah!!!!! Emil Michael had known for 4 days but hadn't told us. Finally Mrs. Persons told him if he didn't tell us she would- hence the call. Thank You Mrs. Persons!

Does he look a little testy? He was mad I made him dress nicely for the luncheon.

At least on the way home he apologized for being upset with us.

So this past Saturday Emil, Emil Michael and I were at Wake Forest University for the awards ceremony. We got there a little early so after we signed in Emil Michael found a baby grand piano and began to play. The woman that was doing the registration asked if he planned on playing until lunch and when we said yes she gave us back the $30 Emil and I had to pay for our lunch. I was pretty stoked!

He's finished the piano piece he composed. I love it but have yet to get a video of him playing it all. (He's a reluctant performer when it comes to cameras.) I have bits and pieces of it so hopefully I can get him to do a recording session with me soon.

Kathryn, Emil Michael, Emil

We are so proud of him! Would you like to read his winning piece? So would we. However he doesn't remember what he submitted and the person in charge of his award wasn't able to make it to the award program so we couldn't ask her what he had written. They are suppose to post all the winning pieces on the website but as of this post they hadn't updated it yet. I'll let you know if we ever find out what it was.

For now he is busy with college applications, other writing competitions and oh yeah-

writing up the summary for his Eagle Scout Project (will it never end????)

Happy Halloween