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Previous Award Winners – Archived

First-Year Writing

2020

2019

2018

2017

2016

2015

  • 1st Place — Birgit Phelps “Documentary Photography and Dignity”
  • 2nd Place — Karyn Levin “Bringing High School Back to Life”

2014

  • 1st Place — Cora Barnes “Nonverbal Behavior and Communication in Autistic Individuals”
  • 2nd Place — Jordan Osborne “Fear and Loathing on Our Minds”

2013

  • 1st Place — Diana Arbiser “From Hoarding to Landfills: Managing Waste”
  • 2nd Place — Hailey Vik “Party Yourself into Shape”

2012

  • 1st Place — Madison Hansen “Awakened by ‘The Awakening’: A History of Kate Chopin’s Novel and Its Personal Influence”
  • 2nd Place — Chuck Clapsaddle “Homeless Veterans”

2011

  • 1st Place — Jamie Lundergreen “Starbucks: The Ultimate Gentle Giant”
  • 2nd Place — Emery Ross “To the Stars”

Foundations of Ethics and Diversity (formerly Civic and Ethical Foundations)

2020

2019

2018

2015

  • 1st Place — Andrew Ridgeway “The Fair Labor Association: Fair for Who?”
  • 2nd Place — Jessica Miceli-Dodd “Into Focus”

Critical Analysis

2019

2016

2015

  • 1st Place — Andrew Ridgeway “When Species Meet: Human Exceptionalism in James Cameron’s Avatar”
  • 2nd Place — Heath Kemper “‘If You Fight Against God’s Enemy:’ Representations of Good and Evil in Richard III and Henry V”

2014

  • 1st Place — Jennifer Brooks “The Repression of Dream Work”
  • 1st Place — Taylor Kerns “Fathoms Deep: On Hemingway’s The Old Man and the Sea as a Map to Gender Identity Struggle”

2013

  • 1st Place — Madison Uhlenhof “Entertainment or Authenticity: The Other as Represented for Youth”
  • 2nd Place — Cheryl McKell “Negotiating Melville’s Cretan Labyrinth”

2012

  • 1st Place — Lyn Uratani “Evolving from Traditional to ‘Reversed’ Otherness: Agnes; Postcolonial Transformations in Louise Erdrich’s. The Last Report on the Miracles at Little No Horse”
  • 2nd Place — Jacob Westerfield “Myth and McCarthyism: The Role of American National Identity in Film”

2011

  • 1st Place — Tess Grover “Shylock and Javert: The Conflict between Moral Exactitude and Mercy in Law”
  • 2nd Place — Jesse Rosenthal “Everyone’s Extraordinary Evil”

Research Based

2019

2018

2016

2015

  • 1st Place — Alaggio Laurino “The Grieving Woman”
  • 2nd place — Ryan Wright “A Delayed Sensation”

2014

  • 1st Place — Brian M. Lawless “Study, Analysis and Interpretation of Stream Data, Geologic, and Geomorphic Features of Selected Streams in the Boise Foothills”
  • 2nd Place — Rebecca Carter “Ann Landers’s Advice and the Sexual Revolution”

2013

  • 1st Place — Joshua Casaos  “The Role of BTLA and LIGHT in a Mouse Model of Pulmonary Fibrosis”
  • 2nd Place — Melissa Whiteley “In or Out of the Comfort Zone: Gender Preference in the Writing Center”

2012

  • 1st Place — Jenna Nash “Sprawl”
  • 2nd Place — Jessica Ewing “Oratory in Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass”

2011

  • 1st Place — Levin Welch “Ethnographic Introduction of Coping in a Timber-Dependent Community”
  • 2nd Place — Evan Sesek “Palestine: Racism and Apartheid in the 21st Century”

Creative Nonfiction

2020

  • 1st Place: John Barrie “The Unseen”
  • 2nd Place: Jessica Kendall “Limbo

2019

  • 1st Place — Pania Tkachenko “The Other Woman”
  • 2nd Place —  Rebekah Gunderson “Ammophila” 
  • 3rd Place, honorable mention — Kathleen Williams “Landfill”

2018

2017

2016

2015

  • 1st Place — Mindy Hubbard “Valley Fever”
  • 2nd Place — Lantz Brown “A Walk Around the Block”

2014

  • 1st Place — Pamela Craig “Mining for Monahan in Idaho: The Truth/Untruth about Josephine/Johanna/Joe/Jo”
  • Second Place — Mitchell Lewis “Playing without Fear”

2013

  • 1st Place — Kristine Dukes “Batman’s a Liar”
  • 2nd Place — Cindy Sikkema “The Truth About Lies”

2012

  • 1st Place — Kristine Dukes “Breaking up with God”
  • 2nd Place — Pamela Craig “Conserving the Desert of the American West”

Fiction

2020

1st Place: Cichaya Gidley “Lavender Haze

2nd Place: Lyd Havens “A Song of Many Sounds

2019

  • 1st Place — Andi Rados “For You”
  • 2nd Place — John Barrie “Rebel”
  • 3rd Place, honorable mention — Allie Chambers “Tinker”

2018

  • 1st Place — Pania Seeley “The Lines Between”
  • 2nd Place — Cat Bullock “The Sea Maid and the Starfish”

2017

2016

2015

  • 1st Place — Daniel Calderon “Paper Mâche”
  • 2nd Place — Tim Atwell “Nightcall”

2014

  • 1st Place — Lacey Rowland “All We Need”
  • 2nd Place — Andrew Murphey “Bear”

2013

  • 1st Place — Marri Champié “Cat’s Garden”
  • 2nd Place — Margaret Koger “Handy Girl”

Poetry

2020

2019

  • 1st Place — Priscilla Reyna “Cry Baby” 
  • 2nd Place — Lyd Havens “Pulped”
  • 3rd Place, honorable mention — Lianne Collins “At the Library, a Woman Studies”

2018

  • Michael Hassoldt “The Way Home”

2017

2016

  • 1st Place — Gage Tellaria “Jump Start”
  • 2nd Place — Jordan Osbourne [Canine Calaveras]

2015

  • 1st Place — Emily Paige Erickson Untitled [What Games these gulls]
  • 2nd Place — Darby Ebeling Untitled [peace v]

2014

  • 1st Place — Jerri Benson “Luminous”
  • 2nd Place — Trevor Thomas “Orange Groves”

2013

  • 1st Place — Noel Cower “Yggdrasil”
  • 2nd Place — Marri Champié “Fishing Indian Creek”

Multilingual

2020

2019

Personal Essay

2011

  • 1st Place — Josef Firmage “Spartan Decisions”
  • 2nd Place — Deena Trouten “My Grandmother’s Name was Marvel”

Writing in Science, Engineering, and Mathematics

2012

  • 1st Place — Mike Nielsen “Reducing Energy Loss in Water Heating Systems: An Economic Perspective”
  • 2nd Place — Brian Wright “Modified Traffic Impact Study for the Proposed Why-Not Manufacturing Facility”

2011

  • 1st Place — Jacob Cragin “Biological Soil Crust as an Inhibiting Factor to the Entry of Bromus tectorum into habitats in Southwest Idaho”
  • 2nd Place — Heidi Ware “Predator Regulation of Bark Beetle Populations: Can Woodpeckers Effectively Control Beetle Outbreaks?”

Multilingual First-Year Writing

2017

  • 1st Place — Eva Kanneberger “Motherhood”
  • 2nd Place — Nitya Bhargavi Nukala “How Stereotypes Helped Me to Understand Myself”

2016

2015

  • 1st Place — Oanh Tran “Selfplace”
  • 2nd Place — Abdulatif Aldihani “The Fact of Belonging”

2014

  • 1st Place — Keshia Mejorado-Mendez “Escribiendo Para Todos”
  • 2nd Place — Anas Abdullah Alshaaer “Children’s Rights in Saudi Arabia”

2013

  • 1st Place — Gilbert Mbonyintwari “My ‘Guilde’ to Learning Languages”
  • 2nd Place — Ahmed Al Rashed “The World in One House”

2012

  • 1st Place — Farzan Faramarzi “My Farwell Moments”
  • 2nd Place — Xiaohai Wang “Happy English”

2011

  • 1st Place — Oanh Tran “Selfplace”
  • 2nd Place — Abdulatif Aldihani “The Fact of Belonging”