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Students honored for praising seniors

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By KLINT LOWRY | The Suncoast News

Published: May 23, 2009

LAND O' LAKES - It was a three-hanky afternoon at the Pasco School District headquarters Tuesday as the district awarded the winners of the 21st annual My Favorite Older Person essay contest.

The contest is held every May in observance of Older Americans Month. In Pasco County, it is sponsored by the School District, the Pasco Education Foundation, Community Aging and Retirement Services Inc. and the Area Agency on Aging, as well as Apple Inc., which donated iPod shuffles to the five students whose essays were named the first-, second-, third-place winners and two honorable mention winners.

The iPods and other prizes were appreciated by the winners, but as each got up and read their essays to the room full of family, teachers and school administrators, the essence of what the contest was all about - appreciation for the older people in their lives - was a reward everyone in the room got a piece of.

As it happened, all five winners' favorite older person was a grandmother, or in Tyler Sharp's case, his great-grandmother Mary Arnesen. Sharp, who attends Shady Hills Elementary School, won honorable mention, and was the first to get up and read his essay, a poignant and surprisingly candid account of how his great-grandmother took his family in when his father suffered a back injury and then dispensed a dose of tough love when he developed a dependency on painkillers.

The emotional honesty of Sharp's story had tissue boxes passing around the room for the rest of the event.

Though every student wrote about a grandmother, each essay was as distinctive as the relationship that inspired it. Deer Park Elementary School student Red Abelgas' first-place essay about his grandmother Belona Oauno Abelgas was cleverly crafted, going back and forth between lightheartedness and heartfelt affection for his "Mimi Belona."

"I call her a lot," he said. "I read my essay to her, and every time I read it she cries."

Red told how he fell one day playing soccer. Lying in the mud with a fresh cut on his lip, he recalled hearing a voice shouting above the crowd: "Stand up, Red! Let's go for the win! You can do it!" He recalled the feeling of determination that came over him hearing his grandmother's voice, and how it drove him to score the winning goal.

Her combination of fierce family pride and gentle good humor was typified in what she said to him one morning as he headed to school to take the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test:

"Ace that FCAT, Red. You inherited my brains, so I know you can do it."

Raiza Aguiar, a student at Mary Giella Elementary School, took third place. For her, it was appreciation for what grandmother Judith Rios does for her every day that makes her special.

"She always knows what I want," Raiza said. "Like whenever I have a problem, she always lets me talk with her."

Raiza's grandmother left all her friends and other family members behind in Panama so she could come here and help Raiza's mom and dad, Raiza wrote. Once in America, she learned English so she could help Raiza and her sister Yanire with their homework. She gets up early every morning to make sure they have a good breakfast and they are ready to go to school looking and feeling good.

As different as each of their stories were, Raiza and all her fellow essayists conveyed was whether it's in a single incident or many incidents or every single day, the best way to repay what the older people in their lives do for them is to sincerely appreciate it, and them.

As Red Abelgas wrote, "Mimi Belona, my paternal grandmother, came from the Philippines, but for me she came down from heaven as a gift for God."

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