2005 Essay Contest Winners The winners are....
First Place - Lindsey Carscaddon
Second Place - Reid Hunter
Third Place - Maggie Mosby

Thanks to all who entered and read essays and to the teachers and parents for their support.

Here are the winning essays

First Place Essay

By: Lindsey Carscaddan


Sharp students, brilliant teachers, courses that are to die for and… well… litter.

Shelby Middle is a great school but unfortunately is tarnished by litter. If you had a tablecloth that had a stain, you’d clean it, right? Well, let’s help clean up Shelby Middle’s “stain”!

I know when I get around to cleaning my room it takes most of the day. So, in the weeks after EOG I say we devote one day for cleaning up our campus, classrooms and halls! Doing it during a school day is better than on the weekend because kids might not have a ride or they might have a family thing or sports. They will already be there during the week! Kids could plant flowers and help organize the classrooms too! So not only would we have a clean campus, but a beautiful school as well!

This school is in dire need of a cleanup day! What about when new kids come? They’ll take one look around and see the empty bottles, papers, wrappers and pens all over the place and want to take off running! And I say as a student, if I know I’ll have to work, I’ll try that much harder to keep our school clean! Believe me when I say a clean up day is the way to go!

How would you like five, six or even ten new students? It’s possible! But not without a clean campus! I’m sure that this is the solution you’ve been waiting for!

Second Place Essay

By: Reid Hunter

Do you enjoy walking on polluted roads filled with litter, breathing in polluted air through your mouth and nose, or viewing scenery that was once beautiful but is now filled with someone else’s disgusting trash? If you think the same way that I do, you are probably picturing this horrible vision in your mind and wanting to turn your head away and become ill. What I have just described to you is what Shelby may turn into, unless, we do something now! I know of many places filled with waste around town, but the worst place that I know of is Shelby’s railroad tracks, running straight through up and downtown Shelby. The drains on these tracks are in terrible condition, having experienced from cleaning out the ones behind Cleveland Lumber Company, my family’s business.

The railroad tracks that I have mentioned hold some of Shelby’s biggest rainwater drains and go by some of Shelby’s most popular places. These tracks are filled with beer bottles and many other items such as plastic bags and cardboard boxes. My suggestion for a possible solution would be to arrange a town cleanup day for anyone who could possibly attend. We could hang up fliers around Shelby in stores or on telephone poles. This could make a huge change with the trash on railroad tracks.

If you think over the solutions that I stated earlier, you may realize that they take place not only on the railroad tracks by Shelby Middle School but throughout the town. The posters or fliers may convince people to clean up in their area as well. Just think cleaner streets, cleaner air, cleaner town and cleaner environment. Sounds like a great future life doesn’t it?

Please consider my solutions to cleanup the railroad tracks by this beautiful school and think how it cannot just help out the town but this magnificent planet that God gave us. I think that my solutions could possibly have gigantic effects on this polluted area of town. Also, spread the word that we need to respect the town some seeing how much it has respected us in previous years.

Sincerely,
Reid Hunter

Third Place Essay

By: Maggie Mosby

In the city of Shelby, I have noted that there is a lot of debris near West Graham Street, Washington Street and Marion Street near Shelby Middle School. There is so much litter, dog poop, old cans and bottles and paper wrappers that it stinks. Every time I walk past this place I turn my head and put my nose in my jacket. This place looks filthy and nasty. Across the street are a gas station and a cab service station. Both reek with smell. Sometimes it smells like urine over there!

I live around this area, I thank God I don’t live on that street. My street isn’t too beautiful either. Honey bun wrappers, Fanta bottles, Sundrop cans and Skittle wrappers invade our street. Hopper Chapel is the only building on our block that looks good. I think I know why these plastic materials aren’t in the trashcans.

Shelby doesn’t require every household to recycle. The garbage men don’t pick up twice a week. There aren’t public trash cans anywhere on our streets and no one cares. There should be little orange containers with the words “Shelby Pleasant Living, Recycle” and the recycle sign. Everyone could separate glass, plastic and regular trash. Twice a week “everyday trash” should be picked up. Usually on Tuesday and Thursday mornings are good mornings for pick-up of regular trash. Trash isn’t picked up on the holidays and shouldn’t. Our bright orange bins would be picked up every Wednesday. The bins are reusable. The bins shouldn’t be picked up either.
Recycling would have a good effect on a lot of our products that are lying on McBrayer Street.

The recycle bins would have the recycle sign and look awesome with Shelby’s motto. The containers would be $5.00 a bin and new neighbors wouldn’t have to pay. Garbage cans would be purchased at Wal-mart or Lowe’s and doggy scoopers are found at PetSmart.com.

Public trash cans colored green could be placed at the corner of every other street. Public recycle cans colored orange or gold should be at some street corners. And blue cans would be for glass items. Paper products, glass items, wrappers, plastic,etc. would be in the colorful, public cans and not on the streets.

We could really keep Shelby beautiful! Hope you really consider these ideas.