1999 Computer Essay Contest Winners
Donate to Year 2000 Computer Essay Contest

La Plaza Telecommunity is pleased to announce the winners of the Second Annual Computer Essay Contest.  They are Chris Sillas, an eighth grade student from Taos Middle School, Jeremy Badhand, a sophomore at Chamisa Mesa High School, Tetsuro (Tony) Namba, a Taos High School student presently studying in Japan, Rachel Spears, a sophomore from Taos High and Nicholas S.R. Woodall, a ninth grade student also at Taos High.
 
Contest winnersOn Monday, December 20th,   contest coordinator Nancy Montano and  Executive Director Judith Pepper awarded the winners a new computer with a Cyrix MII PR366 processor, 32 MB of RAM, 3.2GB hard drive, CD-ROM and a 56K modem.  The computer runs Windows 98 and includes Microsoft Works.  La Plaza also provided each winner with an Internet access and email account for one year.
 
 
 

Sillas Family
Juanita Sillas, mother of one of the winners read a moving letter of thanks.  The winners and their families were congratulated  by La Plaza Board Members, Peter Alexander, President, Pam Romero, Mats Wichman and Ira Schwartz.
 

Kathy NambaOne of the winners Tetsuro "Tony" Namba sent his winning essay from Japan where he is currently doing one year of home schooling with his paternal grandparents. His mother Kathy and brother accepted the computer for him.

The essay theme was “Computers, Me and the New Millennium.”  Essays submitted were read and scored by a panel of judges made up of community members from Taos County. Each essay was judged on the following: Content, Clarity and Creativity .  The scores were totaled and the students with the highest total points was declared the winners.  The contest was open to all Taos County including students in private schools and those children who are home schooled.

La Plaza would like to thank the panel members for their time and effort in helping make the essay contest a success.  They were Jenny Bird, local musician, Merrily Beyreuther from the Taos Art Association, Jeffrey Martinez, Taos High School student, Joyce Romero from La Jicarita’s School to Work Program and Walker Peterson from S.O.M.O.S.

La Plaza would like to thank all Taos County youth that submitted an essay.   We only wish we had more computers to give away.  La Plaza would also like to thank the Tango in Taos III organizers and our sponsors who participated in last years Tango event for their contributions that helped purchase the computers. In keeping with our mission of providing access to computer and Internet technology, La Plaza hopes to enlist the help of local businesses and organizations for next year's contest so that we can give away more computers to the deserving youth of Taos County.

Read the winning essays. The essays are published as written.
Chris Sillas
Jeremy Badhand
Tetsuro (Tony) Namba
Rachel Spears
Nicholas S.R. Woodall

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