when i grow up essay contest

Treasurer Moore Launches 2024 ‘When I Grow Up Essay Contest’ in Morgantown Thursday

MORGANTOWN, W.Va . — State Treasurer Riley Moore kicked off the, “2024 When I Grow Up Essay Contest,” at Mountainview Elementary School in Morgantown on Thursday.

Moore told the assembly of students that 15 regional winners get $500, and one grand prize winner will receive an additional $4,500.

Regional winners will come from three age groups in five regions and will be invited to the state Culture Center to read their work. The regional winners get $500. One grand prize winner will collect an additional $4.500 in a Smart 529 account.

“We do have one of the best programs, and it is a special savings plan created by the legislature two decades ago,” Moore said. “It’s helped thousands of West Virginia children get an education by attending college and trade schools.”

The essays are to be 200 words and express what career the student would like to pursue. Moore encouraged the students to go into detail about why they have made that choice and what they hope to accomplish in that role.

“We’re going to be looking for interesting ideas, but it’s about explaining why you would like to do it, and we’ll also be looking at grammar and composition,” Moore said.

Moore told the students that every essay submitted would be read, and it’s a pleasure to read about the dreams children have for their future. No matter if their choice is being a doctor, lawyer, soccer player, or even, like a previous winner, a fashion designer.

“Your passion and ambition are not only inspiring to me but also to your teachers, classmates, friends, and family,” Moore said. “I know that each of you has a bright future ahead.”

Moore said this is a fun way to get kids to think about what they want to do with their lives and if, in college, a technical or vocational school is the best choice. But starting to save early for college will help these students and their families avoid having to agree to student loans.

“If you want to get going on the path towards a college education, you have to start saving early,” Moore said. “School is getting more expensive; you have to start saving early.”

The Smart 529 program is available to any resident in the state. Once an account is established, other family members can make contributions for holidays and birthdays that will earn interest until the student embarks on college.

“Anybody can start one of these,” Moore said. “You can start one for your nieces or nephews; your grandchildren; any family member can start one of these.”

For the officials rules of the contest click here .

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“When I Grow Up” essay contest winners announced

PARKERSBURG, W.Va . (WTAP) - State Treasurer Riley Moore this week announced the 15 regional student winners and statewide teacher winner of this year’s SMART529 “When I Grow Up” essay contest. Among the winners are Aurora Kibble, Kindergartener at Parkersburg Catholic Elementary, and Stella Gigliotti, fifth-grader at St. Mary’s Elementary.

The winners were unveiled during a Facebook event earlier this week just ahead of national 529 Day, an annual celebration on May 29 (5/29) that raises awareness for 529 college savings plans around the country.

Parents, students and educators from around the state tuned in to hear the winners announced and learn more about the SMART529 program and 529 Day.

“This contest is a great way for parents to work with their children to prepare for the future,” Treasurer Moore said. “It also inspires our kids to dream of who they might be when they grow up.”

In its fourteenth year, the SMART529 “When I Grow Up” essay contest asked students in kindergarten through fifth grades to write an essay about what they want to be when they grow up. The teacher portion of the contest asked elementary school teachers to submit an essay about how they would use the contest in the classroom.

More than 2,300 students around the state participated in the contest. Essays from three age groups (grades K-1, 2-3, and 4-5) were judged in each of the five geographic regions, for a total of 15 regional winners.

Each regional winner will receive $500 invested into a SMART529 WV Direct account. An additional $4,500 will be awarded to a grand prize winner, who will be randomly selected in the fall. Each regional winner’s school will also be awarded a $500 cash prize to support school programs.

“Each of these winners have a bright future ahead of them,” Treasurer Moore said. “Due to pandemic and classroom shutdowns, it was a challenging year to enter. I am so proud of every student who submitted an essay.”

The winners, their schools and their dream professions are:

2021 “When I Grow Up” Contest Student Winners

Region One:

Brack McClung, 1st Grader at Lewisburg Elementary – Architect

Landon Tilley, 3rd Grader at Mullens Elementary – Environmental Scientist

Grayson Plumley, 4th Grader at Berlin McKinney Elementary – Orthodontist

Region Two:

Jameson Sibold, 1st Grader at Richmond Elementary – Disney Imagineer

Alivia Williams, 2nd Grader at Point Harmony Elementary – OBGYN

Addyson Gallion, 5th Grader at Spring Hill Elementary – Criminal Psychologist.

Region Three:

Finnian Chavoustie, 1st Grader at Johnson Elementary – Archeologist

Adeline Horne, 3rd Grader at Simpson Elementary – Translator

Stella Gigliotti, 5th Grader at St. Mary’s Elementary – Fiction Author

Region Four:

Benjamin Crowder, 1st Grader at Marlowe Elementary – Engineer

McKinsey Coon, 3rd Grader at C.W. Shipley Elementary – Child Therapist

Nathan Crites, 4th Grader at Moorefield Intermediate – Anesthesiologist

In Region Five:

Aurora Kibble, Kindergartener at Parkersburg Catholic Elementary – Surgeon

Jacob Whisler, 2nd Grader at Steenrod Elementary – Astronaut Engineer

Lainee Hersey, 5th Grader at Wheeling Country Day School – Forensic Pathologist

2021 “When I Grow Up” Contest Statewide Teacher Winner

Kishia Stapleton, 4th Grade teacher at Chapmanville Intermediate

The winners, their families and school officials will be invited to an awards ceremony in Charleston this September to be officially recognized and have an opportunity to read their essays. The grand prize winner will then be randomly selected at the ceremony.

The “When I Grow Up” student and teacher essay contests are sponsored by SMART529, Hartford Funds and the West Virginia State Treasurer’s Office to promote awareness of SMART529 and the need for higher education savings.

Those interested in watching the winners’ announcement, can find the video at www.facebook.com/WVTreasury .

Information about this year’s essay contests were made available online, on social media, in SMART529′s school newsletter, and through direct mail publications. SMART529 is a qualified tuition program issued by the West Virginia Prepaid College Tuition and Savings Program Board of Trustees and administered by Hartford Funds. Complete information about SMART529 and the “When I Grow Up” essay contest is available at www.SMART529.com .

Copyright 2021 WTAP. All rights reserved.

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Two Southern West Virginia students win ‘When I Grown Up’ essay contest

BLUEFIELD, W.Va . (WVVA) - State Treasurer Riley Moore announced that 15 regional student winners and statewide teacher winner of 2023′s SMART529 “When I Grown Up” essay contest.

Now in its 16th year, the annual essay contest asks students in kindergarten through fifth grades to write an essay about what they want to be when they grow up. Elementary school teachers can also participate by submitting an essay about how they would use the contest in the classroom to inspire their students.

“The When I Grow Up essay contest is a fantastic, inspiring experience every year as we get to hear from thousands of children from across the state about what they dream of being when they grow up,” Treasurer Moore said. “This contest gives parents an opportunity to sit down with their kids and not only talk about their dreams but start planning for how they might achieve them.”

More than 3,000 students from across West Virginia participated in the contest.

Essays from three age groups (grades K-1, 2-3, and 4-5) were judged in each of the five geographic regions, for a total of 15 regional winners.

The winners are being announced just ahead of national 529 Day , an annual celebration on May 29 (5/29) that raises awareness for 529 college savings plans around the country.

Winners from our area include:

· Rylee Workman, 3rd Grade at St. Francis de Sales School, Raleigh County – Clothes Designer (Region 1)

· Lillian Stewart, 4th Grade at Berlin McKinney Elementary, Wyoming County – Restaurant Owner (Region 1)

Winners from the other regions include:

Region One:

· Paxton Goble, Kindergarten at Justice Elementary, Logan County – Scientist

Region Two:

· Joel Mitchell, Kindergarten at Kenna Elementary, Kanawha County – Engineer

· Ella Grant, 3rd Grade at Buffalo Elementary, Putnam County – Agriculture Teacher

· Elijah Deskins, 5th Grade at Covenant School, Cabell County – Helicopter Pilot

Region Three:

· Luke Garofoli, Kindergarten at St. Francis Central Catholic School, Monongalia County – Astronaut

· Evelyn Yuhase, 3rd Grade at Mountainview Elementary, Monongalia County – Fashion Designer

· Bradley Darling, 4th Grade at Mountainview Elementary, Monongalia County – Engineer

Region Four:

· William “Liam” Garner, Kindergarten at Widmyer Elementary School, Morgan County – Astronaut

· Naphtali Messiah Matthews, 3rd Grade at Orchard View Intermediate, Berkeley County – Speech Pathologist

· Railen Plauger, 5th Grade at Third Ward Elementary, Randolph County – Nurse for the Military

Region Five:

· Ryker Roberts, Kindergarten at Hilltop Elementary, Marshall County – Grocery Store Owner

· Madeline Farnsworth, 3rd Grade at Kanawha Elementary, Wood County – Business Owner

· Abigail Miller, 4th Grade at A.T. Allison Elementary, Hancock County – Culinary Chemist

Kindergarten through fifth grade teachers also had the opportunity to compete in the teacher portion of the essay contest.

This year’s winning teacher will receive a $2,500 cash prize.

2023 ‘When I Grow Up’ Statewide Teacher Winner:

· Amanda Coon, 5th Grade, C.W. Shipley Elementary, Jefferson County

Copyright 2023 WVVA. All rights reserved.

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Hancock county student wins smart529 essay grand prize.

CHARLESTON – Abigail Miller, a fifth-grade student from Hancock County was named the $5,000 grand prize winner of the 2023 SMART529 “When I Grow Up” essay contest, it was announced Friday during a recognition ceremony held at the West Virginia Culture Center and State Museum.

Miller, who entered the contest while in fourth grade at A.T. Allison Elementary, was unable to attend Friday’s ceremony, according to a representative of the State Treasurer’s Office, which organizes the essay contest. She will be presented with her prize at a later date.

“The When I Grow Up contest is always a great event that brings kids together with their parents to talk about their future career dreams and to start preparing for how they can achieve them,” State Treasurer Riley Moore said. “We always tell people, ‘It’s never too early to start saving for your child’s future,’ and this essay contest helps families focus on their child’s goals. This contest is always an inspiring event, and I congratulate these young children for sharing their dreams.”

Miller was one of 15 regional winners of the essay contest and was randomly selected as the grand prize winner during the awards ceremony. In her essay, she wrote about her dream of growing up to become a culinary chemist.

More than 3,000 students from around the state participated in the contest this year. Essays from three age groups – kindergarten and first grade; second and third grade; and fourth and fifth grade – were judged in each of the five geographic regions, for a total of 15 regional winners.

Each regional student winner receives $500 to invest into a SMART529 account, with the grand prize winner receiving an additional $4,500 prize. In addition to school of each regional winner has been awarded a $500 cash prize to support school programs.

SMART529 is a qualified tuition program issued by the Board of Trustees of the West Virginia College and Jumpstart Savings Programs and administered by Hartford Funds.

Teachers in kindergarten through fifth grade also had an opportunity to compete in a portion of the essay contest, with Amanda Coon, a fifth-grade teacher at C.W. Shipley Elementary in Jefferson County, receiving a $2,500 cash prize.

In addition to Miller, Region Five winners were Ryker Roberts from Hilltop Elementary in Marshall County and Madeline Farnsworth from Kanawha Elementary in Wood County.

This is the 16th year for the essay contest.

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TREASURER MOORE ANNOUNCES 2023 SMART529 ‘WHEN I GROW UP’ ESSAY CONTEST REGIONAL, TEACHER WINNERS

May 25th, 2023 by WCBC Radio

State Treasurer Riley Moore today announced the 15 regional student winners and statewide teacher winner of this year’s SMART529 “When I Grow Up” essay contest.

Now in its 16th year, the annual essay contest asks students in kindergarten through fifth grades to write an essay about what they want to be when they grow up. Elementary school teachers can also participate by submitting an essay about how they would use the contest in the classroom to inspire their students. “The When I Grow Up essay contest is a fantastic, inspiring experience every year as we get to hear from thousands of children from across the state about what they dream of being when they grow up,” Treasurer Moore said. “This contest gives parents an opportunity to sit down with their kids and not only talk about their dreams but start planning for how they might achieve them.”

More than 3,000 students from across West Virginia participated in the contest. Essays from three age groups (grades K-1, 2-3, and 4-5) were judged in each of the five geographic regions, for a total of 15 regional winners.

The winners are being announced just ahead of national 529 Day , an annual celebration on May 29 (5/29) that raises awareness for 529 college savings plans around the country. Each regional winner will receive $500 invested into a SMART529 account. An additional $4,500 will be awarded to a grand prize winner, who will be randomly selected during a reception and ceremony Sept. 15 at the Culture Center in Charleston.

Each regional winner’s school will also be awarded a $500 cash prize to support school programs.

The winners, their schools and their dream professions are:

2023 “When I Grow Up” Contest Student Winners

Region One:

·         Paxton Goble, Kindergarten at Justice Elementary, Logan County – Scientist

·         Rylee Workman, 3rd Grade at St. Francis de Sales School, Raleigh County – Clothes Designer

·         Lillian Stewart, 4th Grade at Berlin McKinney Elementary, Wyoming County – Restaurant Owner

Region Two:

·         Joel Mitchell, Kindergarten at Kenna Elementary, Kanawha County – Engineer

·         Ella Grant, 3rd Grade at Buffalo Elementary, Putnam County – Agriculture Teacher

·         Elijah Deskins, 5th Grade at Covenant School, Cabell County – Helicopter Pilot

Region Three:

·         Luke Garofoli, Kindergarten at St. Francis Central Catholic School, Monongalia County – Astronaut

·         Evelyn Yuhase, 3rd Grade at Mountainview Elementary, Monongalia County – Fashion Designer

·         Bradley Darling, 4th Grade at Mountainview Elementary, Monongalia County – Engineer

Region Four:

·         William “Liam” Garner, Kindergarten at Widmyer Elementary School, Morgan County – Astronaut

·         Naphtali Messiah Matthews, 3rd Grade at Orchard View Intermediate, Berkeley County – Speech Pathologist

·         Railen Plauger, 5th Grade at Third Ward Elementary, Randolph County – Nurse for the Military

Region Five:

·         Ryker Roberts, Kindergarten at Hilltop Elementary, Marshall County – Grocery Store Owner

·         Madeline Farnsworth, 3rd Grade at Kanawha Elementary, Wood County – Business Owner

·         Abigail Miller, 4th Grade at A.T. Allison Elementary, Hancock County – Culinary Chemist

Kindergarten through fifth grade teachers also had the opportunity to compete in the teacher portion of the essay contest.

This year’s winning teacher will receive a $2,500 cash prize.

2023 ‘When I Grow Up’ Statewide Teacher Winner:

·         Amanda Coon, 5th Grade, C.W. Shipley Elementary, Jefferson County

The winners, their families and school officials have been invited to an awards ceremony at the state Culture Center in Charleston on Sept. 15 to be officially recognized and have an opportunity to read their essays. The grand prize winner will then be randomly selected at the ceremony.

The “When I Grow Up” student and teacher essay contests are sponsored by SMART529, Hartford Funds and the West Virginia State Treasurer’s Office to promote awareness of SMART529 and the need for higher education savings.

SMART529 is a qualified tuition program issued by the Board of Trustees of the West Virginia College and Jumpstart Savings Programs and administered by Hartford Funds. Complete information about SMART529 and the “When I Grow Up” essay contest is available at www.SMART529.com .

© 2024, Cumberland Broadcasting Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

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W.Va. Treasurer’s statewide ‘When I Grow Up’ essay contest set

More in wvpa sharing:.

Entries must be postmarked by Friday, Feb. 22 to qualify

Release from the office of the West Virginia State Treasurer:

“This contest helps highlight the importance of post-secondary education,” said Treasurer Perdue. “It has grown into a tradition for many families and it is an essential tool to help stress the importance of saving early for education beyond high school.”

Celebrating its 12th year, the popular contest gives kindergarten through fifth-grade students a chance to win both SMART529 savings for higher education and cash prizes for their schools.

Entries will be judged among five regions in three age groups (K-1, 2-3, 4-5), making for a total of 15 regional winners. The 15 winners will be awarded $500 invested into SMART529 college savings accounts. Out of the regional winners, one grand prize winner will be randomly selected to receive a total of $5,000 in SMART529 scholarship money. Each winner’s school will also receive a $500 cash award.

Teachers of grades K through fifth also have the opportunity to compete in the teacher portion of the essay contest. This year’s winning teacher will receive a $2,500 cash prize.

Over the past 11 years, almost 30,000 entries have resulted in 165 student winners. That means more than $132,000 has been invested in SMART529 scholarships for students around the state and more than $100,000 in prize money has been awarded to teachers and schools.

The When I Grow Up essay contest allows students to submit, in 100 words or less, an essay that explains what they want to be when they grow up. Entries will be judged on originality, creativity and the importance of post-secondary education.

Entry forms for both students and teachers are available at www.SMART529.com . In addition, entry forms will be available at elementary schools throughout the state. The deadline for entry form and essay submissions is Friday, February 22, 2019.

SMART529 is a qualified tuition program issued by the West Virginia Prepaid College Tuition and Savings Program Board of Trustees and administered by Hartford Funds.

For more information on SMART529 or the When I Grow Up essay contest go to www.SMART529.com . For media inquiries, please contact Gina Joynes at 304.341.0758 or George Manahan at 304.546.6174.

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Sacramento artist The Philharmonik wins NPR's 2024 Tiny Desk Contest

NPR recently named singer and multi-instrumentalist The Philharmonik of Sacramento the winner of its 2024 Tiny Desk Contest.

The Philharmonik (also known by his real name Christian Gates) was chosen out of nearly 7,000 entries from across the country for NPR's 10th anniversary of the Tiny Desk Contest.

"My reaction to winning the contest was this feeling of elation from the realization that hard work does indeed pay off - I’m eternally grateful - and still processing how huge this is," he told ABC10. "My next move is to make sure we’re ready for our big show behind NPR’s Tiny Desk and get prepared to have a fun tour with NPR."

He says growing up in Sacramento had an incredible influence on his music.

"Sacramento is essential to the musician I am today," he said. "What I enjoy most about Sacramento is our collective creativity and our community that is eager to come together to create a vibrant culture."

NPR reports it's the second time participating in the Tiny Desk Contest after a previous entry in 2019.

The Philharmonik will now record a Tiny Desk at NPR's headquarters before hitting the road on a 10-date 'Tiny Desk Contest on the Road' Tour.

The only show in Northern California is June 13 in Petaluma at the Lagunitas Brewing Company. Tickets are available for $18 HERE.

Watch  The Philharmonik "What's It All Mean?" (2024 NPR Tiny Desk Winning Entry)

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The monsters that made me: Growing up disabled, all of my heroes were villains

Horror movies challenged my relationship with myself

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Every monster needs an origin story. Here’s mine.

I was born with a rare condition — radioulnar synostosis — which restricts the movement of my forearms. I am unable to turn my hands over palms up, the way you might accept loose change or splash water on your face or land an uppercut. I have lived with this condition all my life, and yet it wasn’t until my late 20s that I started referring to myself as “disabled.”

This word carries immense baggage, and many of us within the wide spectrum of disability tend to minimize our experiences or, as in my case, suffer from feelings of impostor syndrome. Could be worse , I often tell myself. You don’t deserve to call yourself disabled .

Coming to terms with my disability took a long time, to not only accept my identity, but also to discard the lingering shame and stigma that coincide with being disabled. A major part of this reconciliation was thanks to an unlikely source of solace — horror films.

I’ve been a horror obsessive as long as I can remember, but I only recently figured out how to articulate why the genre resonates so strongly with me. On-screen depictions of deformed, disfigured killers and creatures serve as reflections of my own otherness. The phantasmagoric realm of horror, though dark and violent, provides an outlet for me to express the discomfort, frustration, and anxiety surrounding my corporeal limitations.

From a young age, I subconsciously related to monsters, madmen, and every combination thereof. Many even taught me to frame disability in a positive fashion. The archetypal antagonists from the golden age of horror cinema — the Wolfman, Dracula, Frankenstein’s monster — all underwent a transformation to be imbued with extraordinary, otherworldly gifts. Their differences were a source of power, inverting the traditional view of disability as a hindrance, a burden.

My attraction to horror began innocently enough. There were clamshell VHSes galore at my babysitter’s house, including all the Disney classics, many of which were plenty horrific, like the “Night on Bald Mountain” sequence in Fantasia . I carefully studied the imposing figure of Chernabog, the winged, devil-horned demon summoning lost souls from the underworld. To me, he seemed benevolent rather than evil, a counterpoint to the sparkling sunrise that banishes him back to the shadows, an essential element of natural balance.

Disney’s version of “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow,” oddly lumped as a double feature with The Wind in the Willows , presented another kindred spirit — the Headless Horseman. Decked in black and adorned with a blood-red cape, clutching a saber in one hand and a flaming jack-o’-lantern in the other, the Headless Horseman, for me, came to represent the extreme limits of human endurance. A cannonball takes the ill-fated soldier’s head and still his body lingers, perseveres.

Another seminal gateway wasn’t even a horror film. On its surface, The Wizard of Oz is a saccharine Technicolor musical romp, but the dream world its characters inhabit is full of menace — maniacal flying monkeys, spear-wielding Winkie guards, and my favorite, the iconic Wicked Witch of the West. Despite her green flesh and pointy chin, I found her beautiful, alluring, and endlessly more compelling than the picture-perfect Glinda. Astride her broomstick, flinging fireballs, stalking Dorothy and her companions through Oz, the Wicked Witch became the reason I watched an old tape of The Wizard of Oz so many times that the reel snapped.

As she pointed toward the camera with her spindly fingers and sharp nails, I imagined the Wicked Witch was singling me out, inviting me into her world. There, everyone was different, from the Munchkins, notably played by a cast of dwarf actors, to the main trio of the Scarecrow, Tin Man, and Cowardly Lion, who were all “defective” in their own ways, physically and mentally handicapped by the absence of some critical inner faculty. Why Dorothy was so desperate to return to the bleak, monochromatic reality of Depression-era Kansas was beyond me. I would have much preferred to stay in Oz.

By the time I finished elementary school, my tastes sharpened, and I craved harder, more acidic fare. My appetite had been steadily whet by a diet of gory comic books and yellowed Stephen King paperbacks. Cable television in the ’90s was also rife with kindertrauma-inducing spectacle. I was allowed to watch Are You Afraid of the Dark? and Goosebumps , since both were on kid-friendly channels. When left unsupervised, which was often as the child of a single mom who had to work multiple gigs, I could sneak episodes of Tales from the Crypt or X-Files . I knew there was a world of adult horror, and I wanted nothing more than to breach this forbidden zone.

Where to watch the movies mentioned in this piece

• Fantasia : Disney Plus
• Disney’s The Legend of Sleepy Hollow : Disney Plus , as a part of The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad 
• The Wizard of Oz : Max
• The Evil Dead : For digital rental or purchase on Amazon and Vudu
• The Brood : Max , Criterion Channel
• Castle Freak : Shudder, AMC Plus, and for free with ads on Tubi

I caught glimpses of it at the video rental store, where I was compulsively drawn to the horror section. I scanned the shelves, memorizing titles for future reference, studying the macabre cover art, scrutinizing the stills of sliced throats, hacked limbs, and oozing ectoplasm. Although I wasn’t allowed to take home anything rated R, I soon found loopholes that granted me access to films I was desperate to ingest.

Staying over at a friend’s house, we would wait until the grown-ups were asleep, then flip to HBO (a luxury we could not afford at my own home). It was there I first watched The Evil Dead , a personal landmark of my initiation into splatter flicks. My friend and I insisted we weren’t scared, as we cowered in our sleeping bags, squealing with perverse delight when the first possessed teenager stabbed her friend in the ankle with a pencil. We chattered throughout the movie to compensate for our obvious nerves, but by the time Ash Williams descended into the cellar searching for shotgun shells with a ravenous Deadite on the loose, the two of us had gone mute with fear.

Ash, armed with his trademark chainsaw, was clearly the hero (and himself destined to become an amputee in the sequel), but it was the Deadites who entranced me. When the demons seized control, the bodily degradation took effect. First, the teenagers’ eyes went white, and before long, their flesh wrinkled, turned sallow, decayed, bile and pus dripping from spontaneous lacerations. I had never witnessed anything so utterly bloodsoaked, resplendent in viscera, a film that relished in the ways a body can be corrupted.

Bodies are frightfully fragile, and we are all one small step away from an accident or illness that can permanently debilitate. Few filmmakers understand the body’s capacity for biological horror more than David Cronenberg , whose oeuvre introduced me to a world where disability is infused with latent eroticism and regenerative potential.

In high school, I got a job at the same video rental store I prowled as a kid. Now I had the freedom to take home whatever I pleased. The older guys who managed the shop would recommend titles to test my limits — Salò , Cannibal Holocaust , Irreversible . Cocksure teenager that I was, enduring “the most fucked up movie ever made” became my solemn quest. But disturbing or violent as they may be, few video nasties were capable of truly scaring me. Knowing I was a devotee of both horror and sci-fi, one of the clerks suggested I check out Cronenberg, so I took a chance on The Brood .

I was deeply unsettled by the story of an estranged couple fighting over custody of their daughter. What frighted me wasn’t the deformed, dwarflike progeny — birthed by the ex-wife and telekinetically driven to brutally murder anyone who crossed her. The broodlings were devoted to their mother, as was I, and would do anything to protect her. What shook me was Cronenberg’s metaphorical treatment of divorce, especially after watching my own parents’ messy split. The rupturing of a family resulting in physiological consequences illustrated the link between body and mind, a relationship of which I was all too aware, having dealt with depression as long as I could remember.

For many people with disabilities, physical and mental anguish are synonymous, feeding into one another. Feelings of helplessness, hopelessness, and alienation frequently accompany disability. More often than not, disability is chronic, permanent, and insoluble. It can be mitigated, people can adapt, but full-blown cures are elusive. My disability is one such case. I may have accepted this reality, come to terms with my fate, but the journey has not been without frustration, anger, and despair — the monster’s currency.

This explains in part why monsters act as they do. Pain begets pain. Violence begets violence. Fear begets fear. As such, the monster embodies the way we perpetuate trauma, wherein the victim becomes the aggressor. This is why we sympathize with Frankenstein’s monster or the Wolfman, because we understand that they were not born to be monsters — they were made that way by forces beyond their control.

Which is precisely why I cannot totally fault my all-time favorite Lovecraftian abomination, the titular Castle Freak from Stuart Gordon’s low-budget opus, another film I chanced upon at the video rental store. The freak is imprisoned from childhood by his deranged mother, routinely tortured until his face and body are a tapestry of grotesque wounds and scars. He escapes the confines of his dungeon and spies on the American family who has moved into his home, taking a special liking to the couple’s blind daughter.

While the freak wastes no time eviscerating unlucky victims, the lecherous, alcoholic father, played by the incomparable Jeffrey Combs, is no less redeemable. The freak’s feral nature is the byproduct of a lifetime’s abuse. The father, by contrast, has no excuse. Watching this film for the first time, I empathized with the freak and thought of my innate freakishness and the times I’ve lashed out or been cruel. What was my excuse?

Even as the maimed, distorted bodies of creatures like the Castle Freak or the Brood or the Deadites or the Wicked Witch mirrored real-world disabilities and offered me an escape, a safe environment where it was appropriate to root for the villain, I realized that I didn’t want to hurt people, to injure others as I’d been, whether physically or mentally. And more than anything, I was determined not to use my disability as a scapegoat, to behave like a monster and blame it on the way I was born.

Strange as it sounds, I learned to take ownership of my mistakes and embrace my faults through horror films, to forgo hiding behind a mask like the boogeymen in slasher movies. Horror demands that we not avert our gaze from “abnormal” bodies. It challenges our prejudices, our preconceptions. These are films that celebrate disfigurement and deformity instead of shunning it. I reject the notion that horror merely co-opts disability as a cheap scare tactic. When I watch a scary movie, I do not see exploitation — I see exaltation, the disabled not as demonic but as divine.

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Orange County Alcohol and Drug Awareness Council Honors Student Contest Winners

Friends Read Free

Nearly 150 students were honored for their talent in an annual poster and essay contest organized by the Orange County Alcohol and Drug Awareness Council on May 10.

The theme for this year’s contest was “Team up together, be drug-free forever,” which had attracted over 1,800 entries from nearly 20 schools in more than 10 school districts across the county.

“Awareness campaigns and events like this are important for so many reasons,” contest coordinator MaryAlice Kovatch said at the award ceremony at Paramount Theatre in Middletown.

“They give us the opportunity to provide information and share youth talent with our communities,” she added. “[We] will continue to do so as long as there are young people like you who want to make a difference.”

This was the 37th annual student talent contest held by the ADAC, or Alcohol and Drug Awareness Council.

Around 100 students in grades 1–12 won awards for their hand-drawn or digital poster designs, which visualized the annual themes by depicting drugs as harmful matters, joined hands for a common goal of a healthy lifestyle, and outdoor activities and sports as ways to help one stay away from drugs.

Scarlett Voight, a Pine Bush District fifth grader who won the top essay prize for the elementary school division, said that clubs and friends keep unhealthy addictions at bay.

“I have a lot of friends. They are always there for me when I need them. Yes, we have our fights, but we always work it out; it is usually just a little conflict, but we always agree to disagree,” she read her essay to the audience at the award ceremony.

“When I am with my friends, I get so caught up with them that I almost completely forget about my problems in the real world—I love it when that happens,” she said.

Harmony Christian School 12th grader Emma Koening, who won the top essay prize for high schoolers, said that addictions were rooted in the fundamental human desire to seek comfort.

“The idea of comfort is something all humanity strives for, yet it can easily end up becoming this unachievable desire that no action or item can satisfy,” she read her essay at the ceremony.

“Life as a whole is meant to be conquered through the hardships that make it up—there is no shortcut to happiness,” she said. “Despite this being the undeniable truth, so many individuals are turning away from character-building experiences for the sake of numbing pain.”

Among all participating schools, Anna S. Kuhl Elementary delivered the greatest number of essay entries—at 127—and its reading teacher, Catherine Stellato, was honored at the ceremony for starting the tradition of incorporating the contest as part of class assignments years ago.

Having been part of the annual contest for the past 34 years, ADAC Executive Director James Conklin said he had seen student winners go on to become art teachers and illustrators.

“Contest winners today will find yourself, in 5 years, 10 years, and 15 years, somewhere else,” he said at the ceremony. “And we know it is going to be super positive, we know it is going to be somewhere important, and we know you are going to be making changes in your community.”

ADAC representatives also thanked contest judges, event sponsors, and several representatives of public officials at the award ceremony.

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How I learned to stop worrying and love fake meat

Let’s stop inventing reasons to reject cultured meat and other protein alternatives that could dramatically cut climate emissions.

• James Temple archive page

Fixing our collective meat problem is one of the trickiest challenges in addressing climate change—and for some baffling reason, the world seems intent on making the task even harder.

The latest example occurred last week, when Florida governor Ron DeSantis signed a law banning the production, sale, and transportation of cultured meat across the Sunshine State. 

“Florida is fighting back against the global elite’s plan to force the world to eat meat grown in a petri dish or bugs to achieve their authoritarian goals,” DeSantis seethed in a statement.

Alternative meat and animal products—be they lab-grown or plant-based—offer a far more sustainable path to mass-producing protein than raising animals for milk or slaughter. Yet again and again, politicians, dietitians, and even the press continue to devise ways to portray these products as controversial, suspect, or substandard. No matter how good they taste or how much they might reduce greenhouse-gas emissions, there’s always some new obstacle standing in the way—in this case, Governor DeSantis, wearing a not-at-all-uncomfortable smile.  

The new law clearly has nothing to do with the creeping threat of authoritarianism (though for more on that, do check out his administration’s crusade to ban books about gay penguins). First and foremost it is an act of political pandering, a way to coddle Florida’s sizable cattle industry, which he goes on to mention in the statement.

Cultured meat is seen as a threat to the livestock industry because animals are only minimally involved in its production. Companies grow cells originally extracted from animals in a nutrient broth and then form them into nuggets, patties or fillets. The US Department of Agriculture has already given its blessing to two companies , Upside Foods and Good Meat, to begin selling cultured chicken products to consumers. Israel recently became the first nation to sign off on a beef version.

It’s still hard to say if cultured meat will get good enough and cheap enough anytime soon to meaningfully reduce our dependence on cattle, chicken, pigs, sheep, goats, and other animals for our protein and our dining pleasure. And it’s sure to take years before we can produce it in ways that generate significantly lower emissions than standard livestock practices today.

But there are high hopes it could become a cleaner and less cruel way of producing meat, since it wouldn’t require all the land, food, and energy needed to raise, feed, slaughter, and process animals today. One study found that cultured meat could reduce emissions per kilogram of meat 92% by 2030, even if cattle farming also achieves substantial improvements.

Those sorts of gains are essential if we hope to ease the rising dangers of climate change, because meat, dairy, and cheese production are huge contributors to greenhouse-gas emissions.

DeSantis and politicians in other states that may follow suit, including Alabama and Tennessee, are raising the specter of mandated bug-eating and global-elite string-pulling to turn cultured meat into a cultural issue, and kill the industry in its infancy. 

But, again, it’s always something. I’ve heard a host of other arguments across the political spectrum directed against various alternative protein products, which also include plant-based burgers, cheeses, and milks, or even cricket-derived powders and meal bars . Apparently these meat and dairy alternatives shouldn’t be highly processed, mass-produced, or genetically engineered, nor should they ever be as unhealthy as their animal-based counterparts. 

In effect, we are setting up tests that almost no products can pass, when really all we should ask of alternative proteins is that they be safe, taste good, and cut climate pollution.

The meat of the matter

Here’s the problem. 

Livestock production generates more than 7 billion tons of carbon dioxide, making up 14.5% of the world’s overall climate emissions, according to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization.

Beef, milk, and cheese production are, by far, the biggest problems, representing some 65% of the sector’s emissions. We burn down carbon-dense forests to provide cows with lots of grazing land; then they return the favor by burping up staggering amounts of methane, one of the most powerful greenhouse gases. Florida’s cattle population alone, for example, could generate about 180 million pounds of methane every year, as calculated from standard per-animal emissions . 

In an earlier paper , the World Resources Institute noted that in the average US diet, beef contributed 3% of the calories but almost half the climate pollution from food production. (If you want to take a single action that could meaningfully ease your climate footprint, read that sentence again.)

The added challenge is that the world’s population is both growing and becoming richer, which means more people can afford more meat. 

There are ways to address some of the emissions from livestock production without cultured meat or plant-based burgers, including developing supplements that reduce methane burps and encouraging consumers to simply reduce meat consumption. Even just switching from beef to chicken can make a huge difference .

Let’s clear up one matter, though. I can’t imagine a politician in my lifetime, in the US or most of the world, proposing a ban on meat and expecting to survive the next election. So no, dear reader. No one’s coming for your rib eye. If there’s any attack on personal freedoms and economic liberty here, DeSantis is the one waging it by not allowing Floridians to choose for themselves what they want to eat.

But there is a real problem in need of solving. And the grand hope of companies like Beyond Meat, Upside Foods, Miyoko’s Creamery, and dozens of others is that we can develop meat, milk, and cheese alternatives that are akin to EVs: that is to say, products that are good enough to solve the problem without demanding any sacrifice from consumers or requiring government mandates. (Though subsidies always help.)

The good news is the world is making some real progress in developing substitutes that increasingly taste like, look like, and have (with apologies for the snooty term) the “mouthfeel” of the traditional versions, whether they’ve been developed from animal cells or plants. If they catch on and scale up, it could make a real dent in emissions—with the bonus of reducing animal suffering, environmental damage, and the spillover of animal disease into the human population.

The bad news is we can’t seem to take the wins when we get them. 

The blue cheese blues

For lunch last Friday, I swung by the Butcher’s Son Vegan Delicatessen & Bakery in Berkeley, California, and ordered a vegan Buffalo chicken sandwich with a blue cheese on the side that was developed by Climax Foods , also based in Berkeley.

Late last month, it emerged that the product had, improbably, clinched the cheese category in the blind taste tests of the prestigious Good Food awards, as the Washington Post revealed .

Let’s pause here to note that this is a stunning victory for vegan cheeses, a clear sign that we can use plants to produce top-notch artisanal products, indistinguishable even to the refined palates of expert gourmands. If a product is every bit as tasty and satisfying as the original but can be produced without milking methane-burping animals, that’s a big climate win.

But sadly, that’s not where the story ended.

After word leaked out that the blue cheese was a finalist, if not the winner, the Good Food Foundation seems to have added a rule that didn’t exist when the competition began but which disqualified Climax Blue , the Post reported.

I have no special insights into what unfolded behind the scenes. But it reads at least a little as if the competition concocted an excuse to dethrone a vegan cheese that had bested its animal counterparts and left traditionalists aghast. 

That victory might have done wonders to help promote acceptance of the Climax product, if not the wider category. But now the story is the controversy. And that’s a shame. Because the cheese is actually pretty good. 

I’m no professional foodie, but I do have a lifetime of expertise born of stubbornly refusing to eat any salad dressing other than blue cheese. In my own taste test, I can report it looked and tasted like mild blue cheese, which is all it needs to do.

A beef about burgers

Banning a product or changing a cheese contest’s rules after determining the winner are both bad enough. But the reaction to alternative proteins that has left me most befuddled is the media narrative that formed around the latest generation of plant-based burgers soon after they started getting popular a few years ago. Story after story would note, in the tone of a bold truth-teller revealing something new each time: Did you know these newfangled plant-based burgers aren’t actually all that much healthier than the meat variety? 

To which I would scream at my monitor: THAT WAS NEVER THE POINT!

The world has long been perfectly capable of producing plant-based burgers that are better for you, but the problem is that they tend to taste like plants. The actual innovation with the more recent options like Beyond Burger or Impossible Burger is that they look and taste like the real thing but can be produced with a dramatically smaller climate footprint .

That’s a big enough win in itself. 

If I were a health reporter, maybe I’d focus on these issues too. And if health is your personal priority, you should shop for a different plant-based patty (or I might recommend a nice salad, preferably with blue cheese dressing).

But speaking as a climate reporter, expecting a product to ease global warming, taste like a juicy burger, and also be low in salt, fat, and calories is absurd. You may as well ask a startup to conduct sorcery.

More important, making a plant-based burger healthier for us may also come at the cost of having it taste like a burger. Which would make it that much harder to win over consumers beyond the niche of vegetarians and thus have any meaningful impact on emissions. WHICH IS THE POINT!

It’s incredibly difficult to convince consumers to switch brands and change behaviors, even for a product as basic as toothpaste or toilet paper. Food is trickier still, because it’s deeply entwined with local culture, family traditions, festivals and celebrations. Whether we find a novel food product to be yummy or yucky is subjective and highly subject to suggestion. 

And so I’m ending with a plea. Let’s grant ourselves the best shot possible at solving one of the hardest, most urgent problems before us. Treat bans and political posturing with the ridicule they deserve. Reject the argument that any single product must, or can, solve all the problems related to food, health, and the environment.

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