Hope College has announced three winners in the 22nd annual Howard Plaggemars Essay/Poetry Competition, held for students enrolled in the 2003 Vienna Summer School.
All entries responded to some aspect of each student's experiences in Europe this past summer under the guidance of Dr. Stephen I. Hemenway, who has been director of the Vienna Summer School program for the past 28 years and is a professor of English at Hope. Howard Plaggemars of Holland, donor of the prizes, is a 1960 and 1961 alumnus of the Vienna Summer School.
First place was awarded to Karen Marie Schuen, who is a Hope senior and English major from Portage, for her essay "Home Sweet Wien" and for a companion poem called "Wien."
Second place was awarded to Merrie Bannink for her essay "Trains and Trams and Bikes, Oh, My." Bannink, a Calvin College graduate, is assistant to the registrar at Hope, where she has been a member of the staff since 1987.
Third place was awarded to Katherine Budris, who is a Hope senior and English major from Libertyville, Ill., for a collection of three poems: "Rax Alps," "Mauthausen" and "Art in Deutsch."
The first-, second- and third-place awards are for $100, $50 and $25 respectively.
This year's judges, who are all previous winners of the Plaggemars Essay/Poetry Competition, were Tom Bamborough, Carol Friedrich and Dr. Elizabeth Trembley. Bamborough, a 1983 Hope graduate, is the principal of Bamborough Print Communication in Ada. Friedrich, a 2003 Hope graduate from Laingsburg, is currently home-schooling children in a private home and will soon be entering the program for Wycliffe Bible Translators. Trembley, a 1985 Hope graduate, is an associate professor of English and director of the FOCUS and SOAR programs at Hope, and a writer of scholarly works and popular fiction.
Consisting of two three-week sessions, the Vienna Summer School offers students a choice of work in art history, communication, economics, Austrian history, music history, German and Austrian literature, Eastern European literature and a senior seminar, all taught in English, as well as courses in the German language, taught in German. Students are housed with Austrian families, and are free to plan their leisure time and take weekend excursions led by Hemenway to places like Salzburg, Venice, Budapest, Prague and the Austrian Alps.