T-L Photo/JENNIFER COMPSTON-STROUGH Eighteen students of Buckeye Trail Middle School, located in Lore City in Guernsey County, and one from Indian Creek Middle School in Mingo Junction pose with the certificates they earned during Ohio University Eastern’s inaugural Martin Luther King Jr. Writing Contest. They are shown here gathered in the newly renoovated Shannon Hall Community Room on the second floor of the main classroom building on the campus, which is situated along National Road west of St. Clairsville.

ST. CLAIRSVILLE — Ohio University Eastern welcomed students and their families to celebrate the late Martin Luther King Jr.’s efforts to achieve peace, hope and equality on Wednesday.

It was an evening of firsts for OUE, which recognized the winners of its inaugural Martin Luther King Jr. Writing Contest in its newly renovated Shannon Hall Community Room on the second floor of the main building on campus.

David Rohall, dean of campus and community relations, said the university was pleased to host its first event in the room.

As Rohall welcomed the guests, he also described the campus and encouraged them to return in the future. He invited everyone to enjoy some Wally’s Pzza and other refreshments.

Before the awards were distributed, Belmont County NAACP President Jerry Moore II to address the crowd.

He discussed “The Importance of MLK in American Society,” focusing on the importance of hope and how that hope led to King’s now-famous dream for America.

“Hope changes a lot of different things. We can apply hope to our everyday life, whether it be our education, whether it be religion, it applies to everything we do as people” Moore told the gathering. “One of the things that Martin wanted in his dream was for us to be human, which we all are. But sometimes, we have differences of opinion, whether it’s skin color, whether it’s gender … sometimes as humans we reflect on different things that we see — the differences — and compound them instead of just being human all together.”

He said simply being good people who support one another can help everyone achieve their dreams, no matter what they are.

“It all starts with hope, and it all starts with a sense of humanity that starts here, in our hearts,” he added.

He urged the young people in the room to have their own dream and to develop a plan to achieve it. He said that will help us achieve a better society and a better America.

Following Moore’s remarks, 24 students from Buckeye Trail Middle School in Lore City and one from Indian Creek Middle School in Wintersville were commended for their work. As part of the contest, each student selected a quote by King that is displayed at the Martins Luther King Jr. Memorial in Washington, D.C., and to respond to it with either a short essay or a poem. First through third place finishers were then asked to read their work aloud for the audience to enjoy.

Five winners were named in all, including two who tied for first place and two who tied for third. They include:

First place — Van Neuhart and Karalynn Tindall, both of Buckeye Trail;

Second place — Casey Owen of Buckeye Trail; and

Third place — Annabelle Rosser of Buckeye Trail and Maryn Barcalow of Indian Creek.

Rohall thanked everyone who attended and said that OUE intends to make the contest an annual event. He urged the students and their families to visit the campus, which is situated on 300 acres along National Road west of St. Clairsville and has about 100,000 square feet of learning space available.