Home » Grant County High School senior wins second Poetry Out Loud state title

Grant County High School senior wins second Poetry Out Loud state title

Headed to national championship in April

FRANKFORT, Ky. (March 9, 2017) — Grant County High School senior Haley Bryan earned her second state champion title on Tuesday at the Kentucky Poetry Out Loud State Finals in Frankfort.

Haley Bryan
Haley Bryan

Bryan’s path to the championship included recitations of “Please Don’t” by Tony Hoagland and “Self-Portrait” by Chase Twitchell in the first and second rounds, respectively. She clinched the state title with her interpretation of “Hap” by Thomas Hardy.

She will represent Kentucky at the Poetry Out Loud National Finals, April 25-26 at George Washington University in Washington, D.C.

Twenty Kentucky high school students represented their respective schools on the Grand Theatre stage at the poetry recitation contest, which is sponsored by the Kentucky Arts Council, the National Endowment for the Arts and the Poetry Foundation. Each student is judged on the recitation, from memory, of two poems, which are selected by the student and their teachers from a preapproved list of works. Five students were selected to advance to the third and final round, where they recited another prepared poem.

Other finalists were runner-up Mary Kate Godfrey of Elizabethtown High School, Rachel Horn of Betsy Layne High School, Haley May of Conner High School and Rachel Stinson of Allen County-Scottsville High School.

In addition to an all-expense paid trip for herself and a chaperone to the national finals, Bryan will receive $200, and her school will receive a $500 stipend for the purchase of poetry books. As runner-up, Godfrey will receive $100, and her school will receive a $200 stipend.

Along with Bryan, Godfrey, Horn, May and Stinson, other school champions included:

  • Anjuli Alamaddine, Red Bird Christian School, Beverly
  • Chard Carmack, Clay County High School, Manchester
  • Tessa Chilton, Trimble County High School, Bedford
  • Alisabeth Culp, McCracken County High School, Paducah
  • Frances Dougherty, Central Hardin high School, Elizabethtown
  • Taylor Edwards, Marshall County High School, Benton
  • Caroline Handshoe, George Rogers Clark High School, Winchester
  • Sydney Johnson, Bowling Green High School, Bowling Green
  • Emily Marks, Hart County High School, Magnolia
  • Angelica Murphy, Augusta Independent Schools, Augusta
  • Reid Nuckolls, Moore Traditional High School, Louisville
  • Addison Ringstaff, Livingston Central High School, Smithland
  • William Lucas Vance, Leslie County High School, Sizerock
  • James Wolfe, West Carter High School, Olive Hill
  • Alyssa Wray, Boyle County High School, Perryville