Student pens winning words on pink

BY KIRK STARRATT

Kings County Register

One Grade 5 student at KCA School in Kentville realizes bullying is a problem in a lot of schools. Making it his topic for a recent essay contest won him a $1,000 honourarium.

Liam Carmichael, a 10-year-old student from Kentville, says students sometimes do get bullied, although it’s probably more of a problem at the middle school level than in elementary school. He says, hopefully, his essay will help keep people thinking and talking about bullying. “I just think it shows how people need to stop bullying,” he says of his winning essay. “It’s a good topic.”

In terms of writing in general, Carmichael says, “it’s not one of my favourite things to do,” but he may consider doing more - and perhaps entering future contests.

He hasn’t met David Shepard or Travis Price, the two Grade 12 students from Central Kings credited for being the catalysts of the pink movement, but Carmichael’s father works with one of their fathers. “I thought it was a good idea,” Carmichael says about rallying the student body at Central Kings to make a strong statement against bullying by wearing pink. “It’s kind of cool that they thought of doing that.”

Carmichael’s Language Arts teacher, Jill Conrad-Tracey, says Liam has great potential as a writer. All her Language Arts students entered the contest, offered through A&E television, “Great Canadian Lives That Make A Difference.” Students were to choose Canadians of significance to write about.

Conrad-Tracey says several students chose Terry Fox and various other well-known Canadian heroes. However, she says one of the other big winners also decided to write about the anti-bullying movement. The honourarium won by Carmichael was an additional prize the contest organizers decided to award because, based on Liam’s age, they were impressed with his writing. “We’re really proud of him,” she says.

Central Kings pink to send bullies a message

By Liam Carmichael

I chose David Shepard and Travis Price for my essay. They are two grade 12 students at Central Kings Rural High School in Cambridge, Nova Scotia. On the first day of school a grade 9 student showed up wearing a pink shirt. Then 9 or 10 older students mocked him, called him a homosexual and threatened to beat him up. The next day David Shepard and Travis Price decided to do something about bullying. They used the internet to suggest people wear pink. They bought 75 tank tops for male students to wear, and the next day at school, they handed out the tank tops. David and Travis made sure there was a tank top for the bullied student to wear. They also brought a pink basketball to school and pink material to make headbands and armbands. The bullies became very angry, so angry that one was throwing chairs in the cafeteria. These two boys made a huge impact on students in their school, schools in Nova Scotia, and even schools in Canada. Students at Bible hill Junior High in Truro (420 of them), dressed in pink to spell out the word pink. The premier of Nova Scotia, Rodney MacDonald, even realized the importance of what these boys accomplished. He designated the second Thursday of every school year as “Stand up Against Bullying Day”. Students are asked to wear pink on this day. They had support from the public and were interviewed by many newspapers and on CBC Radio.

This story shows how the actions of two boys in a small town sent a message not only in their own school, but in communities all around the world. They showed other people how important it is to respect one another.