Staff Report
Monarch Utilities recently recognized four students as winners of its recent writing contest for Chapa Middle School. Finalists from each grade level and a grand-prize winner were recognized at the school’s pep rally last Tuesday. This is the first year that Monarch Utilities, which provides water services to many of the residents in Kyle, hosted a writing contest in Hays County.
Gary Rose, director of operations, SouthWest Water Company, the parent company of Monarch Utilities said “It’s the goal of our company to give back to the community, and what better way to do that than to teach the children about water conservation combined with something that helps improve their writing skills.”
The students submitted essays that discussed the importance of water in their life, the community, the state or the world today. The scoring rubric used for the contest followed the State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness (STAAR) guidelines for expository essays, and a panel of Chapa Middle School English/Language Arts teachers scored the essays.
Mikayla Ojeda, a seventh grade student at Chapa Middle School, wrote the grand-prize winning essay titled, “The Importance of Water.” Mikayla received a $500 Visa gift card for being the winner of the entire contest.
Three other finalists from each grade level were each presented with a $100 Visa gift card: Sedona Heaney, sixth grade; Ethan Allen, seventh grade; and Keda Dixon, eighth grade.
Printed here is Mikayla Ojeda’s winning essay.
The Importance of Water
by Mikayla Ojeda
Imagine living in a world without water. There would be no more plants, animals, oceans or rivers, and no more humans. Life as we know it would be non-existent. The Earth would be a giant, deserted sphere of nothingness that no longer had any meaning or use. It would seem as if not even a speck of life had even touched the surface of what we call our home. As you can see, water plays a very crucial role on our planet and we need to conserve this vital resource as best as we can.
Water is a very valuable and important resource to have. All living things need water to survive and sadly, not all of these things can easily access this resource. For example, some people that live in a more “desert-like area” find it hard to reach this resource because of the very little amount of rainfall received and severe drought. Another problem that occurs quite often is that not everyone can access clean water for bathing and drinking purposes. Trash, dirt, and other pollutants can be thrown into the water making it contaminated. Drinking contaminated water can be very harmful to you and your body and can give you illnesses or diseases. I and others around me are fortunate enough to have access to clean water and I think that everyone and everything on the globe should have that capability too. I hope that one day everyone will come to a point in their lives and realize that we need to protect the health and the amount of water in our world.
As I mentioned earlier, water plays a very crucial role on our planet. There are more than 318.9 million citizens in the United States and we have to remember that every one of us uses hundreds of gallons of water every day. Don’t forget about the plants and animals too. They need water just as much as we do. Plants and animals need water to survive or they will slowly start to die. We need the plants and animals to survive because we rely on them for many resources too. Without those resources, the entire human race would begin to fade off as well. As you can see, this whole situation has a huge domino effect upon all of us and it impacts every living thing on the Earth. To keep these tragic events from happening, we must conserve this precious resource to the best of our abilities.
There are many easy and effortless ways to save the amount of water all around the world. Conserving water is as simple as turning off the faucet while brushing your teeth or taking a shorter shower. We as individuals use a large amount of water on an everyday basis. Doing these simple things everyday will help contribute to conserving water. We must also try to keep our water clean. Remember to throw any trash away in a trash can or it may end up in a river, lake, or ocean. These pollutants not only harm plants and animals in the water but, us too. We must take it upon ourselves to help keep any trash out of the water. We all need this very important resource in our lives so we must keep it clean.
Overall, water is a very important resource to have. It plays a very important role in our world by helping all living things meet its needs and in reality, we wouldn’t be here without it. I hope that everyone will realize how vital this resource is to our planet and how much of an impact it has on all of us.
