Bishop Gorman senior, Erica Ochiai, comes up a big winner in Scholastic Art & Writing Awards as she won two gold keys for both categories.

Most of the time, College Prep, Honors, and AP classes have separate assignments based on the varying difficulty of the classes. However, all senior English classes shared one common assignment within the last couple of weeks of the first semester. This assignment included submitting a writing piece to the Scholastic Writing Competition.

The Scholastic Art and Writing competition is a regional and national competition where students can submit their own pieces to the organization, then be judged within their region and possibly awarded. If a contestant receives a “Gold Key” Award, they are automatically placed into the national competition and eligible for scholarships. “Gold Key” awards are especially prestigious as only 5-7% of submissions receive such an award.

Astoundingly, senior Erica Ochiai received a Gold Key for both the Art and Writing Competition within the region. “I won Gold Key for my personal essay and memoir, ‘Kintsugi’. I also won Gold Key for my ceramics and glass piece, ‘The Akkorokamui: A Now Vicious Center Piece’.”

While most students and contestants submitted older pieces from past English classes, Ochiai submitted works that were more sentimental, “for both art and writing, I picked my pieces based on sentimentality and uniqueness. The pieces I submitted dealt with my Japanese heritage and family. My art piece meant a lot to me because ‘The Akkorokamui’’ was an old Japanese folk tale that my grandma used to tell me when I was younger. The piece represented a loss of culture as a once great monster simply turned into a centerpiece that holds fruit,” Ochiai remarked.

Ochiai’s memoir and art piece submission were both unique and of high quality, which definitely helped with the success she achieved from the competition. Despite the quality of her work, Ochiai’s wins were not a sure thing, “I was surprised I won Gold Key for the competition because of how competitive the Scholastic Art and Writing Competition is,” she commented. Many other schools involved themselves in the competition making it all the more fierce. However, Ochiai remained on top.

Ochiai’s success not only shone a light of achievement on her, but on Gorman as well, and should inspire many more students to attempt to do the same next year when the competition rolls around again.