Four students earned honors in the local Kappa chapter of Delta Kappa Gamma Society’s essay contest.

Delta Kappa Gamma promotes professional and personal growth of women educators and excellence in education. The chapter sponsored an essay contest for students in grades 7-8 with the topic “My Best Friend.”

Winners were Makenzie Wicher, first place, and Matthew Hicks, second place, both seventh-graders at Covington-Douglas Public Schools, and Aisley Schultz, first place, and Jacob Klamm, second place, from Waller Middle School in Enid.

The News & Eagle is publishing the top two essays.





My Best Friend



By Makenzie Wicher,

seventh-grader in Pamela Allen’s class, Covington-Douglas Public Schools



My best friend is Hunter. This year at her birthday party it was her family, other friends and me. Her cake said “Happy 7th Birthday Tim,” and her parents got the number 21 candle, even though she was turning 12. We ate pizza, cake and drank lots of pop. Then we went and turned on the sprinkler and put it under her trampoline and acted like people in our school. We were going to go swimming, but her other friends had to go home early, so we did not have time to drive to Stillwater. So we drove around forever trying to find a different lake, but never could find one. Hunter is my best friend because she is athletic, nice and fun-loving.

Hunter is very active even when she is tired and weak. When Coach puts her in the game, she tries her hardest. She catches or stops every ball that comes her way. She is an amazing batter when she connects with the ball. She is an awesome outfielder and first baseman. She plays softball, basketball and runs track. Whenever she is not playing a sport, she stays practicing. She is a brawny athlete who is very good at all her sports.

She is very nice to and cares for others. When I was at her house, her family was going to the fair, and she invited me to go with them. Two years ago at Tri-State carnival, we went and her parents paid for my tickets. They also bought me snacks so I would not starve. When I have difficulties or struggles, she never judges me for being rude. When I get upset about my dad’s death, she always helps me through it. When people make me mad and I take it out on people, she knows I do not mean it. She is a very polite person when it comes to others.

She is a joyful person and always has a good time. At my birthday party she kept us laughing even as it got late. She told plenty of jokes and good stories. When we started to calm down she got all of us crazy again. She invited me to her little sister’s party, and we did so much during the night, we hardly got any sleep at all. It was a busy night all around Marshall that night, so a great amount of people were still awake. We sang, danced and watched TV and some scary shows. She is a very upbeat person who knows how to have a good time.

Hunter is my best friend; she is a very fit, kind and optimistic person. She is extremely fit when it comes to sports. She is not selfish; she helps with problems and does not take what I say personally. She is exciting and always has a good time.





Parker



By Aisley Schultz

eighth-grader in Melissa Weber’s class, Waller Middle School, Enid



My friend Parker is an extraordinarily singular person. Even so, when he first moved to Enid in my second (yes, second) year of kindergarten, I didn’t see it right away. We then proceeded to voyage through the next six years of elementary school together. We laughed and joked the whole time. We didn’t really become close until our sixth-grade year; however, I’ve always enjoyed spending time with him. Since that year, he’s become my best friend. This was, and is, a very wonderful and positive thing and probably happened because of how easily he gets along with me, how funny and crazy he can be, and how much he really grasps me as a person.

Parker and I have become so close because of how easily we get along. He’s astonishingly easy to talk to and simply keeps me laughing no matter what. One particular night, we were talking using Google’s Voice and Video Chat system through Gmail. We didn’t have any super meaningful reasons to get offline, so we continued laughing, goofing off and talking about anything and everything for quite some time. We even had a contest to see who could sing and type at the same time the best. By the time we realized we should probably go to sleep, it was 7 a.m. and we’d been talking for 10 straight hours. By this point, the both of us found the whole episode downright hilarious, and I just laughed it off, said my goodbyes and went to take a shower, seeing as there was really no point in going to sleep.

Parker is pretty hilarious most of the time, and very crazy too, but that only makes him more fun. Whenever we hang out we usually do some extremely insane and usually stupid stuff. Once, he had this girlfriend who believes in “monthiversaries.” I got a really, really big kick out of that one. Honestly, I have never heard of something quite as uniquely stupid and as very middle school as a single month’s anniversary. But of course, he had to get her something as protocol demanded, and I was enlisted to help pick it out. So we picked out a necklace we found, and I sent him to the register to buy it. I must say, he looked pretty ridiculous buying that thing. The elderly ladies behind the register snickered along with me at the sight of him. We started to leave the store, and right when we got to the door, he yelled “It’s going to look so pretty on me!” After that we quickly escaped the store, cracking up. Fun things like this always seem to happen around Parker.

One of my favorite things about Parker is that he honestly understand me, even better than most girls do. As our separate weeks go on, we tell each other our sob stories, our funny tales, our joys, our frustrations, our relationships with other people. He knows when to agree with me, and when he needs to tell me I’m wrong about something. He truthfully means all that he says. He knows when to smile, and just ignore my nerdy outbursts. He never tries to make me feel better when I’m sad or upset or try to change my opinion if he doesn’t share it. Anytime though, he will always make me laugh enough to forget anything and make my days better.

I realize that it is ever so slightly unusual for a girl my age to have a guy for a best friend, but he deserves to be because of how well we get along, how he fills my days with funny stories and crazy ideas, and how he just gets me, unlike most people. I’ve always enjoyed having Parker for a friend, when we were nerdy little kids, and even now that he’s skipped a grade ahead of me and is half a foot taller. We have so much fun when we’re together. We’ll never stop laughing, goofing off and generally getting into trouble together. Even now I can just see that Parker is going to be a friend I talk to on a regular basis, even after Enid, after college and after we lead more separate lives than today.