LAKEPORT
Lily Morita of Middletown High School wins Poetry Out Loud Lake County
On a bright Sunday in the last days of January, the students of Lake County shared their voices through the beauty and power of poetry. The Soper-Reese Theatre resonated with dynamic recitations by the finalists of Lake County’s annual Poetry Out Loud competition, a national arts program that encourages the study of poetry and culminates in a live, juried recitation event. The competition was created by the National Endowment for the Arts and The Poetry Foundation and has been proudly hosted for over a decade by the Lake County Arts Council in partnership supported by a grant from the California Arts Council.
This year, four students represented the best of the best from their high schools: Madelin Muniz-Espinoza, Clear Lake High School; David Wilkes, Kelseyville High School; Jocelyn Knapp, Lower Lake High School and Lily Morita, Middletown High School. Each of these amazing students had already competed and won first place in the competition at their individual school levels and came to the county level finals with two full length poems memorized for performance.
Jordan O’Halloran was the coordinator of this year’s Poetry Out Loud competition and also had the daunting task of tallying the scores of the tight competition. She gathered a group of local poets and educators to serve as judges: Lake County Poet Laureate Emeritus Richard Schmidt, artist, writer and teacher Diana Liebe Schmidt, poet and retired educator Pamela Bordisso, political poet and theatrical artist Beulah Vega and poet Brenda Yeager. In between the students’ recitations, as O’Halloran was tallying the scores, the poet judges read a stunning and diverse array of their original work.
Then, the performances culminated with an exquisite reading by Georgina Marie Guardado, the current Lake County Poet Laureate, who spoke of how moved she was by the caliber of student performances. She honored the students and audience with a reading her own original work and a poem by the current National Poet Laureate, Ada Limon.
After a tight competition of deeply inspiring recitations, Lily Morita of Middletown High School took First Place with her soulful and insightful performances of “Listening In Deep Space,” by Diane Thiel and “Backdrop Addresses Cowboy,” by Margaret Atwood. She will move on to the next level of Poetry Out Loud’s California State final competition in Sacramento.
David Wilkes of Kelseyville High School took Second Place and will be the backup competitor at Sacramento if Ms. Morita should find herself unable to attend. Madelin Muniz-Espinoza of Clear Lake High School won Third Place. And Jocelyn Knapp of Lower Lake High School was the Runner Up.
—Brenda Yeager
CALIFORNIA
Cal State faculty ratify contract
California State University faculty overwhelmingly approved a new labor contract, moving the nation’s largest four-year public university system a step closer to ending arguably the most acrimonious labor standoff between educators and university leaders in the system’s history.
The California Faculty Association said Monday that 76% of members who voted approved the tentative agreement, a set of raises and expansions of benefits that exceeds what Cal State negotiators were offering during eight months of contract negotiations but fell short of initial union demands.
The union represents 29,000 professors, lecturers, counselors, coaches and librarians.
All that remains to finalize the contract is a vote from Cal State’s board of trustees, who are scheduled to meet March 24-27. It’s likely that trustees will approve the deal. The deal would last through June 30, 2025.
“We look forward to working together to continue our advocacy for an equitable CSU,” Charles Toombs, union president and a professor at San Diego State, said in a statement that also thanked members for organizing and joining the strikes.
The week-long vote followed a one-day strike last month, the first time faculty walked off the job at all 23 Cal State campuses in the system’s history, and strikes at four campuses in December. Some union members criticized the union’s leadership for ending the rain-soaked January strike the day it began, arguing a better deal could have emerged had the strike lasted the full five days union leaders envisioned. Critics also faulted the deal for agreeing to a 10% across-the-board raise that technically isn’t fully guaranteed.
It also raises the salary floor by at least $3,000 for the lowest paid faculty on top of the faculty-wide raises — less than what the union wanted but also something Cal State management originally opposed.
—Lynn La, CALMatters
