Early College Student Honored at HCC

Two Roanoke Rapids Early College High School students took home top honors in the Native American Indian Heritage Month Poetry Contest sponsored by Halifax Community College.  

Joslynn Smith was the first place winner with her poem "The Dream of a Child".  She received a $100 gift card.  10th grader Dashanay Purnell received 2nd place honors and a $75 gift card for her winning poem titled, "I Once Thought of a Dream".  



The Dream of a Child
By: Joslynn M. Smith

As children, dreams were curious, 
things we blew candles out for.
Never to tell a soul, lest it not come true. 

Others whispering theirs to the stars, hoping one day, that blazing stone, would be the purpose for their fortune.

Now growing up there’s a push for this and that.
“You have to know what you wanna do.”
“What’s your plan?”
Not a single soul cares what you do,
unless you start bringing in gold.

Confused, alone, and burnt-out.
Dreams are a childish thing now,
something you’ll never achieve.

But the select few, remember those stars,
the candles, the dandelions, the late-night prayers.
They run, chase, and grab at every opportunity.
They push, achieve, believe,
even when others wavered.

People say, “it’ll never happen, an impossible thing!”
“Be a little more mature, or else you'll end up poor.”
Money is the essence of all corruption.
Dreams are the core of existence.

After all, the dreamers prevail,
they are artists, musicians, and scholars,
physicians, teachers, and doctors.
Doing things they love,
things they craved to be since adolescence.

Ask these folk, and they will tell you,
“Chase your dreams, listen to the ones that push you!”
They’ll explain the teachers, professors, and parents,
friends, family, and lovers that were there.

Behind the scenes of their success,
Support of every level, in youthful days.
A shove towards strategy, to achieve their dreams.

So think to yourself, ”Do dreams come true?”  “Can I even fulfill my goals?” remember those, the ones who pushed, who shoved, who supported, Remember their kindness, their love, their names. Use them for hope, a nudge toward promising days.  

I Once Thought of a Dream

 By Dashanay Purnell

“For a dream without discipline is just a myth, we pass it down to our children hopefully to teach them a lesson about the lesson we learned about what we should have done”  - Dashanay Purnell                                                               

I think. You dream. I have had no dreams I have reality

Influencer of dreams, a teacher per se

Seems like the right thing to do, tell the followed your dreams cliché

Where dreamers and doers separate, For you know there is no escape like a dream, an unrealistic riddle

A dream is many things as it bids reality adieu, but it is a compass, hide and go seek of never being truly lost as reality always finds you

As you blow motivation out the light may stop but time does not get a pardon, the way of the day passing as the sun and moons dips, the once soft wax has now hardened,  

Hardening hits your mind as if it was real, as it stops flowing down your fingertips as if it was a thought, a dream that runs across your mind never to be seen just as the sun rises and the moons dips

A fingertip of action and a coating of fear separates a dream from reality being a destination near

Give and take of creation you control can separate the light taken as reality unfolds