Georgia High School Student Takes Home second-place at the 2015 Poetry Out Loud National Championship

On Wednesday, April 29, 2015, Paris J. Stroud, 18, a senior at Paulding County High School in Dallas, Georgia took home second-place at the 2015 Poetry Out Loud National Championship in Washington, D.C. out of more than 365,000 participating students.
The top finalists and their schools will receive $50,000 in awards, including $20,000 for the National Champion. As the second-place winner, Stroud received a $10,000 award.

Now celebrating its tenth year of national competition, Poetry Out Loud is a partnership between the National Endowment for the Arts and the Poetry Foundation. The program encourages the study of great poetry by offering educational materials and a dynamic recitation competition to high school students across the country. The Poetry Out Loud National Finals are the culmination of a yearlong poetry education program involving some 365,000 students, 9,000 teachers, and 2,300 high schools across the country. High school teachers who want to learn how to get involved in next year's program can visit www.poetryoutloud.org.

For the past seven years the Atlanta History Center's Margaret Mitchell House has been selected to coordinate Poetry Out Loud by the Georgia Council for the Arts. Georgia's participation includes:

• 74 schools from around the state
• Over 9,000 students
• More than 100 teachers
• 37 counties around the state

To find out more about Georgia Council for the Arts, visit gaarts.org.