MOULTRIE, Ga. — Lily Griner of Colquitt County High School has placed in the Georgia Rotary Club Laws of Life Essay Contest.

The contest winners were announced April 2 on a Rotary Club of Moultrie Facebook post. Griner achieved fourth runner-up in the statewide essay contest out a total of 25,112 essays. 

The Laws of Life Essay Contest asks students to write about what “laws of life govern their everyday life,” according to Rotary Club of Moultrie President Jaclyn Donovan.

Participants were judged on a variety of categories including: does it display a law of life, how is the law illustrated in the story, what emotion is brought out from the piece and how well is it written, according to Donovan. 

“This was our first year participating in the contest. We had 828 students from Colquitt County High School submit essays,” Donovan said.

Judges made up of staff of the high school and members of the local Rotary Club evaluated the essays and submitted 27 for state judging. The essays have to pass through multiple levels of critique during the state judgement process, according to Donovan.

The Georgia Rotary Club divided up Colquitt County’s 27 submitted essays by grade level and one essay was selected from each grade level (ninth through 12th). Out of those four, one was selected to represent Colquitt County High School. 

While Griner is only a sophomore, she was selected as the school winner. 11th grade winner was Kirsten Hobbs and 12th grade winner was Isabella Barfield. Honorable mentions were Karli Lawhorn, Alaina Campbell, Rebecca Perez, Thelma Licona, Hailey Knox and Madison McDaniel. 

Griner will receive a $200 cash prize for placing in the contest, according to Donovan. A cash prize of $100 will be given to Susan Passmore, an English instructor and Law of Life Contest chair at Colquitt County High School for achieving 10% student participation at the school.