In this year’s meet, freshman Steven Moore was one of the 26 highest scoring ninth graders in the entire country, while his teammate Katie Walker placed among the 119 highest-scoring ninth graders out of 69,000 nationwide.

“We’re quite proud of these two in this high-level academic performance. This is a culmination of work we’ve been doing for years with our students starting in elementary school with the WordMasters program and an emphasis on reading and writing. It’s outstanding to be recognized among some of the top students in the country,” said Superintendent Dennis Sawyer.

More than 69,000 high school students from 47 states entered the meet this year.

Teachers Julie Thompson and Kasey Overton oversaw the students’ participation locally.

The premise behind the WordWright Challenge is that attentive reading and sensitivity to language are among the most important skills students acquire in school.

The texts students must analyze for the Challenge can range from modern short fiction to poetry as old as Shakespeare’s.

The WordWright Challenge requires students to analyze the emotional and rational logic of a piece of writing and to notice the ways in which a writer’s style shapes and shades meaning.