2015
MAIER AWARDS PROGRAM
WELCOME & REMARKS ABOUT THE MAIER AWARDS
PRESENTATION OF THE MAIER LATIN AWARDS
PRESENTATION OF THE MAIER WRITING AWARDS
REFRESHMENTS
THE MAIER LATIN SIGHT-TRANSLATION CONTEST
The Maier Latin Sight-Translation Contest was created in 1992. Students from each of the four levels of Latin secondary instruction compete by translating at sight passages of Latin appropriate to their levels of instruction.
Each junior high and high school represented at this convention may select one student to compete at each level. A first prize of $200 and a second prize of $100 are awarded in the Latin I and Latin II levels. A first prize of $200 is awarded in the Latin III and IV levels. Third prize in Latin I and II, and Second and Third prize in Latin III and IV are recognized here for their merit but have no cash prize.
MAIER LATIN SIGHT-TRANSLATION CONTEST WINNERS
LATIN I LATIN II
FIRST PLACE FIRST PLACE
Somasundari Hannon Paige Walbert
The Linsly School The Linsly School
Teacher: Nicoletta Villa-Sella Teacher: Nicoletta Villa-Sella
SECOND PLACE SECOND PLACE
Kaitlin Smith Abigail Harman
Cabell Midland High School Harman Academy
Teacher: Gail Lewis Teacher: Lois Merritt
THIRD PLACE THIRD PLACE
Emma Huffman Christian Hall
St. Albans High School Cabell Midland High School
Teacher: Melissa Agee Teacher: Gail Lewis
LATIN III LATIN IV
FIRST PLACE FIRST PLACE
Sunna Kureishy Alex Keyser
The Linsly School Cabell Midland High school
Teacher: Nicoletta Villa-Sella Teacher: Gail Lewis
SECOND PLACE SECOND PLACE
Thomas Hart Dana Sharma
Charleston Catholic High School Huntington High School
Teacher: Virginia Cook Teacher: Amy McElroy
THIRD PLACE THIRD PLACE
Ananda-Siskiskit Olinski Nathan Runyon
Cabell Midland High School Charleston Catholic High School
Teacher: Gail Lewis Teacher: Virginia Cook
- Italics = no cash prize, certificate of merit sent
MAIER LATIN SCHOLARSHIP
The Department of Classics at Marshall University sponsors the Maier Latin Scholarship, generously underwritten by the Maier Foundation. This two thousand dollar scholarship is intended to support the work of a student presently pursuing a Latin major and enrolled in advanced Latin classes.
2015 MAIER LATIN SCHOLARSIP RECIPIENT
Jordan Mason
Jordan is the Latin Major with the most outstanding academic record for the 2014-2015 academic year.
THE MAIER LATIN CUP AWARDS COMPETITION
For the past 31 years, the Maier Foundation has graciously funded the Maier Latin Cup Awards Competition, which is administered by the Department of Classics at Marshall University. These awards have three purposes: 1) celebrating publicly the best high-school Latin students in the state of West Virginia, 2) recognizing the effective teaching being carried out by high-school Latin teachers in the state in a difficult academic subject, and 3) emphasizing the importance of Latin and Roman Studies in the current curriculum in secondary education. As far as can be ascertained, this contest is unique among Classics departments across the country.
The Maier Latin Cup Awards were established by William J. Maier, Jr., in 1979 to repay in some way the special attention his Latin teacher at Huntington High School showed him, for it was this extra devotion to Latin and Latin students on the part of his teacher that helped him secure a scholarship to Harvard University. Each high school that offers Latin in the state, public as well as private, is encouraged to select two students currently enrolled in Second-Year Latin to take the College Board Latin Achievement Examination in December each year. Upon the basis of scores earned on this test, a prize of $500 is presented to the first-place winner and $250 to the runner-up. The first-place winner receives the additional honor of having his/her name engraved on the Marshall University Latin Cup, displayed the following academic year at the winner’s high school.
THE MAIER LATIN CUP AWARDS COMPETITION
WINNER
Kathryn Wantlin
Charleston Catholic
Teacher: Virginia Cook
RUNNER-UP
Maureen Budka
Hedgesville High School
Teacher: Margaret Horioka
SECOND RUNNER-UP
Christian Crawford
Spring Mills High School
Teacher: Margaret Horioka
THE WILLIAM J. MAIER WRITING AWARDS
These awards are a tribute to good writing as the winning essays, stories, and poems represent the best student work for the 2014-2015 academic year. These prizes are a unique honor that affirms the students’ dedication to what is the single most important skill that they can develop in college: the ability to write well.
Mr. William J. Maier, Jr., created the competition in 1972 after reading Dr. John Teel’s National Review article describing the freshman composition classes taught at Marshall University. In that essay, Dr. Teel argued that students are best served when they read and then write about the great works of the humanities that are the foundation of the liberal arts. Great writing is evidence that one has the ability to learn from reading, to analyze and form conclusions by comparing and contrasting ideas, and to share these insights with others through clear writing. The award is named in honor of Mr. Maier’s father.
The goals Mr. Maier established for this competition were simple. First, he wanted to reward good writing and provide an incentive for students to develop their skills. Second, he wanted to provide financial support for Marshall University students. Indeed, the awards have always fostered competition and camaraderie that make the skills of writing, a necessary and a basic educational task, more attractive to students, faculty, administrators, and the general public. We are proud to maintain the legacy that Mr. Maier created and to celebrate the work of our students and the dedication of our faculty.
During the typical year, more than 1,500 students complete the second portion of the first-year composition sequence. The upper-level and graduate courses also enjoy robust enrollments. The number of students eligible to participate in this competition makes the accomplishment of the students honored today impressive. The College of Liberal Arts and the Department of English are proud to offer these unique and prestigious awards to students of Marshall University.
FIRST YEAR NON-RESEARCH
Judge: Shirley Lumpkin
FIRST PLACE
“Vivere est Vincere: To Live is to Conquer”
By: John Midkiff
Faculty Mentor: Prof. Stephanie Walker
SECOND PLACE
“Lying With the Lamb: ‘Animalistic’ Humans and Animal Innocence”
By: Rebecca Turnbull
Faculty Mentor: Prof. Daniel O’Malley
THIRD PLACE
“The Symbolism of the Vietnamese Soldier and Tim O’Brien”
By: Tony Hayes
Faculty Mentor: Prof. Anna Rollins
FIRST YEAR RESEARCH
Judge: Shirley Lumpkin
FIRST PLACE
“The Dead Baby Dilemma: Midwifery in Response to Unethical Medical Practices”
By: Rebecca Casto
Faculty Mentor: Prof. Mitchell Lilly
SECOND PLACE
“Too High a Toll: The Privatization of Toll Roads and Highways”
By: Sean Sutherland
Faculty Mentor: Dr. Anthony J. Viola
THIRD PLACE
“A Critical Photo Analysis of Hiroshi Ishiguro’s Geminoid – Exploring the Android-Human Relationship: Inhuman Humanity”
By: Joel Alexander Kitchen
Faculty Mentor: Prof. Nicole Lawrence
THIRD PLACE
“Risky Business in the Name of Graffiti”
By: Emily Wallace
Faculty Mentor: Dr. Kelli Prejean
UPPER DIVISION NONFICTION PROSE
Judge: Mary Moore
FIRST PLACE
“Linking Through Lyricism: An Exploration of the Use of Motif in Lyric Essays”
By: Hannah Smith
Faculty Mentor: Dr. Carrie Oeding
SECOND PLACE
“Mickey, Mallory and Monsters, Oh My!: The Obsession With Violence in Natural Born Killers”
By: Brooke Ingram
Faculty Mentor: Dr. Walter Squire
THIRD PLACE
“Motivating Students With Learning Disabilities to Write”
By: Cody Greathouse
Faculty Mentors: Dr. Allison Carey & Dr. Kelli Prejean
GRADUATE NONFICTION PROSE
Judge: Robert Hill
FIRST PLACE
“‘These Guys are Animals, Jack’: Race and Place in Big Trouble in Little China”
By: Ian Nolte
Faculty Mentor: Dr. Walter Squire
SECOND PLACE
“Rural Lives in Transition: Minimalism in Bobbie Ann Mason’s Shiloh & Other Stories”
By: Jennifer Sullivan Spoor
Faculty Mentor: Dr. Anthony J. Viola
THIRD PLACE
“Ekphrastic Parallels Between Art and the Everyday in the Face of Nature in Crane’s ‘Sunday Morning Apples’ and Dove’s ‘Why I Turned Vegetarian’”
By: Aaron Morris
Faculty Mentor: Dr. Carrie Oeding
GRADUATE & UNDERGRADUATE POETRY
Judge: Art Stringer
FIRST PLACE
“High Tea”
By: Cynthia McComas
Faculty Mentor: Prof. Eric Smith
SECOND PLACE
“The Way You Leave Is a Kind of Staying”
By: Rob Engle
Faculty Mentor: Dr. Rachael Peckham
THIRD PLACE
“Museum of Tiptoes”
By: Nichole Scott
Faculty Mentor: Dr. Carrie Oeding
THIRD PLACE
“Off Topic”
By: Aaron Morris
Faculty Mentor: Dr. Carrie Oeding
GRADUATE & UNDERGRADUATE CREATIVE NONFICTION
Judge: Patrick Madden
FIRST PLACE
“Hollow Grief”
By: Alex George
Faculty Mentor: Dr. Rachael Peckham
SECOND PLACE
“Talking Spic”
By: Elizabeth Danishanko
Faculty Mentor: Prof. Rajia Hassib
THIRD PLACE
“The Fear of the Recoil”
By: Hannah Kittle
Faculty Mentor: Dr. Rachael Peckham
GRADUATE & UNDERGRADUATE FICTION
Judge: Tom Noyes
FIRST PLACE
“Lambs”
By: Alex George
Faculty Mentor: Prof. John Van Kirk
SECOND PLACE
“My River Branches”
By: Thomas Holland
Faculty Mentor: Dr. Anthony J. Viola
THIRD PLACE
“Wild Heart”
By: Meranda Jennings
Faculty Mentor: Dr. Anthony J. Viola
MULTIMEDIA
Judge: Art Stringer
FIRST PLACE
“Personal Becomes Political”
By: Hannah Leport
Faculty Mentor: Dr. Walter Squire
SECOND PLACE
“One Day at a Time”
By: Stephanie Shelhammer
Faculty Mentors: Dr. Allison Carey & Dr. Kelli Prejean
THIRD PLACE
“Breaking Barriers”
By: Meghann Martin
Faculty Mentors: Dr. Allison Carey & Dr. Kelli Prejean
THIRD PLACE
“In Loving Memory: The Story of Basketball, Love and Unity”
By: Cody Greathouse
Faculty Mentors: Dr. Allison Carey & Dr. Kelli Prejean
MENTORS, JUDGING, AND JUDGES
Tom Noyes’ newest book, Come by Here: A Novella and Stories, won the 2013 Autumn House Prize in Fiction. He is the author of two other story collections, Spooky Action at a Distance and Other Stories and Behold Faith and Other Stories, which was shortlisted for Stanford Libraries’ William Saroyan Award. His stories have appeared in such journals as American Literary Review, Colorado Review, Mid-American Review, New Ohio Review, Pleiades, Sycamore Review, and Third Coast. Currently, he teaches in the BFA program at Penn State Erie, The Behrend College, where he also serves as a consulting editor for the literary magazine Lake Effect.
- E. Stringer is the author of three poetry collections, Channel Markers, Human Costume, and most recently, Late Breaking. His work has appeared in such journals as The Nation, The Ohio Review, Shenandoah, The Cincinnati Review, and also in the anthology Backcountry: Contemporary Writing in West Virginia. He has also edited and introduced a new edition of Louise McNeill’s Paradox Hill from West Virginia University Press. And for twenty-four years, he taught writing and literature at Marshall University.
Mary Moore received her Ph.D. at UC Davis and taught English at Marshall University for 19 years. Specializing in Renaissance literature, she published a scholarly book, Desiring Voices: Women Sonneteers and Petrarchism, and a collection of poetry, The Book of Snow, as well as articles on women poets and Shakespeare. She won Marshall’s Distinguished Artists and Scholars Award and the Hedrick Award. Her poems have appeared in numerous journals including Ciders Press Review, American Poetry Journal, Prairie Schooner, and Capability.
Shirley Lumpkin taught English for over 30 years at Marshall University. A lover of collaborating with colleagues to use writing in teaching, she was the third Writing Across the Curriculum Director and at various times the Marshall University Writing Project Director. She has published articles on African American writers Etheridge Knight and Fenton Johnson, Sarah Grimke, and the works of Cherokee Appalachian writer Awiakta and Appalachia writers Louise McNeill, Barbara Kingsolver, and Marcia Bonta.
Robert W. Hill, who received his Ph.D. from the University of Illinois, taught at Clemson University and co-edited the South Carolina Review. At Kennesaw State University, he chaired the English Department and co-founded Kennesaw Review. In 2010 he was honored with the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Georgia Writers Association. His numerous reviews and articles appeared in journals such as Southern Quarterly and South Atlantic Review, and his poems have appeared in Shenandoah and Minnesota Review, among other prestigious journals.
Patrick Madden is the author of two essay collections from the University of Nebraska Press, 2010’s Quotidiana and Sublime Physick, due early next year. His essays have appeared widely in journals and in The Best Creative Nonfiction and The Best American Spiritual Writing anthologies. He is co-editor (with David Lazar) of After Montaigne: Contemporary Essayists Cover the Essays, due this September from the University of Georgia Press. He teaches at Brigham Young University and Vermont College of Fine Arts, and he curates the online essay anthology at www.quotidiana.org.
WILLIAM J. MAIER, JR. AND THE LEGACY OF PHILANTHROPY
“Live frugally and accumulate fortune honestly as rapidly as you can. When you have enough to provide a modest standard of living… turn to the world around you and seek diligently to find where you can invest the surplus of time and fortune to do the most good.” These are the words of advice of William J. Maier, Jr., a lesson of philanthropy he learned from his parents and has instilled in his family. Mr. Maier was extremely generous to the College of Liberal Arts through his support of the Writing and Latin awards. His son, Ed, and his family have maintained the tradition of patronage through the work of the Maier Foundation. Indeed, many people in the great state of West Virginia have benefited from the selfless support of this tireless family.
Born in 1903 in Harrison County, West Virginia, Mr. Maier enjoyed the guidance of a family who valued education. Indeed, he proved himself to be an able student, having graduated from Huntington High School in 1919 at the age of 16. Before continuing his education at college, he spent time with a tutor perfecting his command of Latin. When satisfied with his accomplishment, he applied to and received admittance with a full scholarship to Harvard where he continued to excel as a student. His work at Harvard led to a Rhodes scholarship that allowed him to study at Oxford University. Mr. Maier then taught undergraduate courses at Harvard while completing a law degree at the school.
Returning to his native West Virginia, Mr. Maier used his quick wit, knowledge of law, and business sense to develop a notable business portfolio.
