38th Annual Nan Rushing Write-off, Annual Competition Celebrates Importance of Grammar & Literacy

The 38th Annual Nan Rushing Write-off was held on Saturday, March 2, at Southeast Bulloch High School for all of Bulloch County’s public middle schools.

This year’s overall winning school is Southeast Bulloch Middle School, who swept all three of the overall grade-level categories, plus the school had 15 first-place and nine second-place wins by individual team members.

Sponsored by Barr Law Offices, LLC of Statesboro, the competition features eight grammar and literacy categories in which individuals from the district’s middle schools could choose to compete. Individual winners, overall grade level winners for sixth, seventh, and eighth, plus an overall team winner were named during an awards ceremony that was held after the morning’s competitions.

Students from Southeast Bulloch Middle School, Portal Middle High School, Langston Chapel Middle School and William James Middle School competed in capitalization/punctuation, mental concentration, persuasive speech, narrative writing, persuasive writing, vocabulary, spelling, and usage/language expression. Their scores and placements earned points for overall school team scores.  Awards were given to the top two scoring individuals for each grade level (sixth, seventh, eighth) in each category, for each overall grade level team, and the overall winning school. The event was coordinated by Lauren Brazell, an English teacher at Southeast Bulloch Middle School, with assistance from other middle school language arts teachers across the district.

The competition was started in 1985 by Nan Rushing, who was an English language arts teacher with the school district. She had received a $1,000 mini-grant from the district to begin a writing event in Nevils. Now 95, Rushing, remains part of the annual competition’s awards ceremony. 

A nationwide website outage with the Illuminate online program on which the competition’s assessments are taken, caused a delay in the release of the competition’s results this year. We apologize for the delay and inconvenience. Congratulations to this year’s winners.

Persuasive Speaking

• Sixth Grade: Caleb Moore, Southeast Bulloch, first place; C.J. Lovett, Portal, second place
• Seventh Grade: Noah Williams, William James, first place; Darshana Shakya, Southeast Bulloch
• Eighth Grade: Savannah Gordon, Southeast Bulloch, first place; Gavin Akins, William James, second place

Narrative Writing

• Sixth Grade: Marian Robles, Langston Chapel, first place; Violet Myers, Southeast Bulloch, second place
• Seventh Grade: Vivienne Lee, Southeast Bulloch, first place; Sophie Veland, Southeast Bulloch, second place
• Eighth Grade: Lillian Kolbe, William James, first place; Adriana Hagins, Portal, second place

Persuasive/Argumentative Writing

• Sixth Grade: Charles Erney, Southeast Bulloch, first place; Maci Moore, Portal, second place
• Seventh Grade: Madilyn Williams, Southeast Bulloch, first place; Ashton Staten, William James, second place
• Eighth Grade: Grace Landers, William James, first place; Mayleigh Bryant, Southeast Bulloch, second place

Vocabulary

• Sixth Grade: Jaycee Jobba, Southeast Bulloch, first place; Daniel Spencer, Portal, second place
• Seventh Grade: Elijah Simons, Southeast Bulloch, first place; Cole Strosnider, Portal, second place
• Eighth Grade: Riley Ellis, Southeast Bulloch, first place; Emily Johnson, Southeast Bulloch, second place

Usage & Language Expression

• Sixth Grade: Sadie McGalliard, William James, first place; Henry Runyan, Southeast Bulloch, second place
• Seventh Grade: Evan Mackelprang, Southeast Bulloch, first place; Emanuel Brown, Southeast Bulloch, second place
• Eighth Grade: Mia Kersey, Southeast Bulloch, first place; Jackson Lewis, William James, second place

Spelling

• Sixth Grade: Sadie McGalliard, William James, first place; Alea Williams, Portal, second place
• Seventh Grade: Jamie Braddock, William James, first place; Joseph Pyne, Southeast Bulloch, second place
• Eighth Grade: Janie Cowan, Southeast Bulloch, first place; Ivey Skrak, Langston Chapel, second place

Capitalization & Punctuation

• Sixth Grade: Lanie Wilson, Southeast Bulloch, first place; Alea Williams, Portal, second place
• Seventh Grade: Ilah Simpkins, William James, first place; Evan Mackelprang, Southeast Bulloch, second place
• Eighth Grade: Kendall Griffith, Southeast Bulloch, first place; Chaeyeong Oh, William James, second place

Mental Concentration

• Sixth Grade: Lalie NeSmith, Portal, first place; Eva Wright, Langston Chapel, second place
• Seventh Grade: Daniel Davtyan, Southeast Bulloch, first place; Jamie Braddock, William James, second place
• Eighth Grade: Kendall Griffith, Southeast Bulloch, first place; Chaeyeong Oh, William James, second place

Grade Level Winners

• Sixth Grade: Southeast Bulloch Middle School, first place; and Portal Middle High School, second place
• Seventh Grade: Southeast Bulloch Middle School, first place; and William James Middle School, second place
• Eighth Grade: Southeast Bulloch Middle School, first place; and William James Middle School, second place

Bulloch Co Schools