In October, the Creative Writing class saw four winners of the Kansas City Stars writing contest. Shelby Otte, Lily Willison, Alex Francis, seniors, and Hannah Frazier, junior, were finalists in the competition. Out of the 13 people who were finalists, four were from Olathe South.

The competition was an assignment for the entire class to complete and enter. The Kansas City Star provided a story starter about a Kansas City native who died whilst eating barbeque. The students then had to finish the story using 1,000 to 2,000 words and a horror element.

Francis said, “Half of us were really excited, and the other half really didn’t want to do the assignment.”

Some had other opinions concerning the competition.

“I really didn’t like it because the intro provided forced what your story was going to be about and I’m not good at writing scary stories,” Willison said.

The remaining half of the class was delighted at the prospect of writing a scary story.

Frazier said, “I was really excited for the assignment because it was like a write- your- own scary story.”

However, the class completed the assignment with flying colors and read their rough drafts out loud to the class.

“There were a lot of other really good stories in the class,” Willison said.

The four finalists stories were published on the Kansas City Star website. This is the first story that Fraizer, Willison, and Francis have had published.  Otte has been published four times. The poems that she published are in “The American Library of Poetry” and “Creative Communications.”

None of the finalists expected their stories to be published.

“Absolutely not,” Otte said, “This was a complete surprise.”

The finalists were shocked  not to see more of their classmates get their stories published.

“I was really excited because there were a lot of really good stories in the class and to think I was even competing with them is amazing,” Francis said.

The Creative Writing class enters writing competitions every semester as part of their final grade. They will be entering  more competitions in December.