At first glance the four teenagers seemed too young to really understand what they were talking about.
But any illusion of naivete disappeared with the impact of their words and depth of their feelings as one by one they walked on stage and read aloud their entries during an awards ceremony in their honor Tuesday at the Abbington Distinctive Banquets. They were countywide winners of the 6th annual World AIDS Day essay contest sponsored by the DuPage County Health Department.
For its first four years, the contest was offered to high school students, but the last two it was limited to 7th and 8th graders. More than 120 students entered and, along with the four countywide winners, a winner also was chosen from each of the 10 schools that entered the contest.
The four winning essays emphasized responsibility or abstinence in sexual practices as well as drug use and encouraged compassion and tolerance for others’ lifestyles.
The essays touched the ceremony’s special guest Kate Shindle, Miss America and national HIV/AIDS prevention advocate.
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“I am so impressed and so pleased at your level of awareness,” she said.
Earlier Shindle had addressed the audience of family members, students and personnel from schools and the health department. She talked about how she became aware of AIDS, its effect on those she cared about and how the younger generation should be responsible and learn about the disease, and “harness our strengths . . . because we have the power to effect positive change.”
“I think it’s a horrible, tragic disease and it should be eliminated because if it continues this way then there’s going to be nothing–everyone will die,” said first-place winner Elizabeth Kirby after the ceremony. She is a 7th grader at Marquardt Middle School in Glendale Heights.
“I really kind of went with what I felt and thought was true,” Elizabeth said of her entry, entitled, “Life is Too Sweet to Waste on One Night.”
Second place was won by Julie Kautza, an 8th grader at Jefferson Junior High School in Naperville, for her entry, “Being Responsible Counts: You Can Prevent AIDS From Spreading.”
Third-place winner Elise Lagattuta, an 8th grader from Itasca’s St. Peter the Apostle School, used the image of a thorny red rose in a bouquet to represent how one person’s illness affects friends and family.
And an imaginary AIDS epitaph on a gravestone symbolizing the goal of “AIDS Being Wiped Out” was the entry of Danny Tyndall, 4th-place winner and 8th grader at Concord Lutheran School in Addison.