Esther McClure Win's Poetry Award (click to enlarge)

While going through papers at EJ’s Uncle Johns over the weekend, we came across this page from the Uvalde Leader, her local town paper from her Texas days. John was clearly proud of her, and it’s probably no surprise that I am as well – Ernest

From the Newspaper Article:

Winning two awards for ber poetry in one week was an unexpected pleasure for Southwest  Texas Junior College student Esther McClure, particularly since one of the awards carried state wide recognition. McClure won first place in the college poetry division of the SWTJC Creative Arts Contest, which concluded with the awards ceremony on February 22.

Then, on February 2nd, she traveled to San Marcos with SWTJC instructor and creative arts sponsor David England and two other students, Debbie Gonzales and Arlene Maldonado for the Texas Association of  Creative Writing Teachers convention, which also features a  creative writing contest.

On  February 25, it was announced during the meeting that McClure’s poem had won another award, this one in competition with upper level students at most of the four year universities in the state.

“We never expected this to happen  although Esther is one of tbe most talented young writers I’ve encountered,” “When a junior college student competes with juniors and seniors from places like UT-Austin and SMU, it’s usually not healthy to expect to win.”

The TACWT contest awarded one first place award for poetry and five honorable mentions. Cari Spurlin of Texas Tech won first place and McClure was named in the honorable mention list.  “For a student to be listed among the top six college student poets in the state is quite an accomplishment,” England said. “For a freshman junior college student to make that list is incredible.” TACWT is an organization for creative writing teachers, creative writing students, professional writers and publishers.

The annual convention features workshops on teaching, writing arrd publishing as well as readings by widely publish ed authors. This year, James Michener was the featured speaker, and the meeting was held on the campus of Southwest Texas State University.