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Ebenezer Middle student recognized for essay
5.26 GMA R.Shey
Shey

SAVANNAH — An Ebenezer Middle School students was honored for her essays in a contest sponsored by the Gulfstream Management Association.

Rachel Shey of EMS will receive a $50 savings bond for her essay about providing employees with technological tools to multi-task and perform their jobs in a safer manner.

Kelsy Wilson, a student at Ebenezer Middle School, was also a contestant.

Students were asked to write on themes of leadership and technology.

The April competition was open to seventh- and eighth-grade students in the Coastal Empire and the Low Country of South Carolina.  Fourteen students, representing seven area schools entered the contest sponsored by the Gulfstream Management Association. GMA is a leadership and professional development organization within Gulfstream Aerospace.

John McCarthy, an eighth grader at St. James Catholic School in Savannah, won a $200 U.S. Savings Bond for his first-place finish.

The contest is meant to stimulate the creative minds of middle school students by getting them to think about the future.  Each student was asked: “In your role as a future leader, what new technology skills will be needed and applied how?”  Their challenge was to write a 500-word essay explaining how they would acquire new technological skills so they could lead in a certain field, community or business.  

McCarthy’s essay focused on “life-long learning — as technology advances and grows, the skills required by a leader are constantly changing.”  
His essay described how communication technology can bring personnel who are thousands of miles apart together to make informed decisions, yet still allow dispersed decision making.  These communication skills are necessary in order to become a vital and thriving team, McCarthy wrote in his essay.             

Judging was based on how well the student wrote the essay with supported reasoning about leadership and the new technological skills that will affect leadership — not which type of job or business is more important than another.  Each student’s essay was scored on content development, sentence structure, logic flow and word selection.  

The judges were GMA members whose professional backgrounds involve writing, presentations and communications.  
The second-place finisher was Matthew Hendrix, a Brooklet seventh grader at Southeast Bulloch Middle School. Hendrix won a $100 savings bond for his essay about communication solutions to global warming.  

Other students whose essays received an honorable mention were:
Ben Crumbley (Coastal Middle School, Savannah)
Bee Seginack (St. Peter the Apostle School, Savannah).

Other contestants were:
Vy Nguyen-Richmond Hill Middle School; Ly Nguyen-Richmond Hill Middle School;    Jeb Bremer-St. Peter the Apostle School; Dakota Barren-Richmond Hill Middle School;    Sarah Reed-St.Peter the Apostle School; Daley Stepanek-Southeast Bulloch Middle School; Katy Burrell-Southeast Bulloch Middle School; and ShaQuetea Jenkins-Shuman Middle School.