Peak Awards for Students Announced

Courtesy of A Peek at the Peak magazine and the Greater Pinnacle Peak Association

     Most successful people can tell you when their creative efforts were first publicly recognized. Having their writing and photographic work published and rewarded can provide an important boost to a student’s confidence, enhancing their future academic, artistic, and professional endeavors. For these reasons, the Greater Pinnacle Peak Association (GPPA) and A Peek at the Peak magazine (The Peak) are pleased to announce its first annual The Peak Awards for Students program.

     Goals

     The program is designed to:

• Promote environmental preservation within our community

• Encourage excellence in journalistic writing and photography

• Recognize and publish the works of students

• Educate the public about schools in our area, including those in the Cave Creek Unified School District and the Scottsdale Unified School District

     Awards will be made to students who win the organization’s Preserving Our Environment Writing Contest. Entrants are being asked to submit a fiction or nonfiction article, poem, or essay, up to 750 words in length entitled “What’s Worth Preserving in Our Community.” The entry must include from one to three photographs that support the writing. The deadline for entries is March 2, 2008. Winners and the school they attend will be announced on March 15th and winning entries will be published in The Peak beginning with the April 2008 issue.

     Awards

     Awards will be made for Gold (1st place), Silver (2nd place), and Bronze (3rd lace) middle school and high school categories. Winning entries will be published in The Peak and on GPPA’s Web site. The winners will also be announced in E-Brief Monthly, GPPA's e-newsletter. The names of winners will also be released to the local media. Winners will also receive:

•  An official award notification letter

• Copies of The Peak in which their winning entry is published

• Beautiful personalized plaque (similar to the one shown)

• Cash award

     Student Participation

     The contest is open to middle school and high school students who live and/or attend school in A Peek at the Peak (The Peak) magazine’s distribution area (north Scottsdale, Carefree, Cave Creek, northeast Phoenix, and the Verdes). Both the Scottsdale and Cave Creek Unified School Districts have endorsed the award. The contests are also open to area home school and charter school students.

     Contest information, including rules, deadlines, and a list participating schools is posted GPPA’s Web site (contest section) and will be published in E-Brief Monthly, copies of which can be requested online at GPPA’s Web site. To promote the contest, flyers describing the contest will be made available to participating schools. In addition, Cave Creek Unified School District has agreed to post information about the contests on appropriate Web sites. Contest judges will include The Peak’s editorial staff and contributing writers and photographers.

     Final Note

     The new program is in addition to the annual grant that GPPA awards to a graduating senior of Cactus Shadows High School. The grant is awarded based a student’s contribution to our community’s environment.

     For Additional Information
     Complete information including submission guidelines, amount of cash awards, etc. will be available by September 1, 2007.

Web: www.gppaaz.org (Contests)
Telephone: (480) 361-6498
Mail: GPPA, 8711 E. Pinnacle Peak Road, #123, Scottsdale, AZ 85255 

E-Brief Monthly, August 2007