A local high school students won $5,000 in an audio podcast scholarship competition sponsored by South Carolina’s electric cooperatives.
Leah Gardner of Bennettsville, who served as Lynches River Electric Cooperative’s representative, collaborated with Felix Gonzalez of Indian Land (York Electric Cooperative), Roshni Nandwani of Myrtle Beach (Horry Electric Cooperative) and Peyton Rollins of Woodruff (Laurens Electric Cooperative) to create the winning podcast.
Seventy-four high school students from across South Carolina competed in the competition. All were participants in the Virtual Youth Experience earlier this summer.
During the virtual experience, the students heard from state leaders including U.S. Rep. Jim Clyburn, Tim Scott, R-S.C., S.C. State Epidemiologist Linda Bell and Chris Singleton, whose mother, Sharonda Coleman-Singleton, was one of nine killed in the 2015 Emanuel AME Church shooting. Using interviews from those leaders, the students then worked in groups to create audio podcasts that completed the sentence: This is my country…
Listen to the winning podcast and those submitted by other LREC representatives at the links below:
- Winning podcast by Leah Gardner | https://bit.ly/37ARbpJ
- Erin Adams | https://bit.ly/3xLMYdk
- Rylee Jenkins | https://bit.ly/3yJJWHJ
- Torie Johnson | https://bit.ly/3AHJr1H
- Jordan Taylor | https://bit.ly/3iHU4eC
The winning group was selected by a panel of journalists that included Cindi Scoppe of The Post and Courier newspaper, Kenneth Moton of ABC News, Dawndy Mercer Plank of WIS News, Ben Hoover of WSPA and Lucas McFadden of CN2 News.
In addition to the $5,000 winners, John Sumter of Myrtle Beach (Horry Electric Cooperative) is receiving $500 as finalists in the competition. Laney Brown of Conway (Horry Electric Cooperative) received an honorable mention and won $250.