STUDENTS AT SCHULTZ WRITE WINNING ESSAYS IN NATIONAL CONTEST

"The children used to play king of the mountain in the rolling hills of the park. Now they play king of the trash heap.

"Their laughter and teasing shouts could be heard throughout the neighborhood. Now the only sounds that can be heard are the swarming of flies that have turned our nightmare into their paradise, and the steady hum of the oxygen suits, their only protection from the toxic fumes of the outside world."

So begins the award-winning essay of Stacey Hawkins, a seventh-grade student at L.J. Schultz School.

Hawkins is one of four Schultz students who took top honors in the grades 7 and 8 division of a national poster and essay contest on the environment, sponsored by the California Table Grape Commission.

Hawkins and schoolmate Nora Renka tied for first place, along with a Prescott, Ariz., eighth-grader.

Schultz students Jessica Keys and Caroline Giles finished second and third, respectively.

"It is amazing, I think, for a school to win a national contest for two years in a row," said Bonnie Matzat, a language arts teacher at Schultz. Her students include Hawkins, Keys and Giles.

Last year Schultz students captured the top two spots in the national contest, Matzat said.

Renka submitted her essay as part of the Probe gifted program taught by Carolyn Ford.

Announcement of the awards comes in advance of today's nationwide Earth Day observance.

Project Environment, developed by the grape commission in 1990, is open to students in first through eighth grades. It involves a curriculum designed to teach the importance of environmental responsibility, a commission spokesman said.

It is estimated that 150,000 students participated in the curriculum program, with more than 1,000 contest entries received from across the nation.

"I think it is important for us to take care of the environment because it is only ours to borrow," said Hawkins, whose science-fiction imagery won the admiration of the judges.

"Watching your children from a video monitor, which have long since replaced windows, you feel an overwhelming sadness. They will never see the natural wonders that inspired so many artists' work. Their vision of the world as you know it is blocked by garbage," she wrote.

"I thought it got the point across, going to extremes," she said Wednesday as she and her fellow Schultz students showed off their award certificates.

Renka said it's important to protect the environment. "We have to take care of it because it is where we live," she said.

In her essay, Renka said that approximately 180 million tons of solid waste are generated each year, most of it going to landfills.

She wrote that one "important way to save landfill space is by keeping our things in good condition so we won't have to throw them away. For example: every 20 minutes Americans dump enough cars to form a stack as high as the Empire State Building."

Keys' essay deals with ways to reduce waste.

"Writing book reports is one good way of wasting paper," she wrote. "We should write on recycled paper, or write on the back of the questions, or maybe do your book report on computer."

Giles, in her essay, discussed the importance of not giving up in the battle to save the environment. "Our grandparent's generation gave us a nice, clean Earth, and we owe it to our grandchildren to give them the same," she wrote.

Winning carries its own rewards. Hawkins and Renka will receive mountain bikes for their first-place efforts. Keys will receive a dome tent and Giles will receive a canteen and a backpack.

The students said they are looking forward to getting their prizes. Renka said she can't wait to get the bicycle. "Personally," she confessed, "I hope they hurry up."