Two students in Robin Neal’s Junior Honors English class were recently recognized for their writing by the website TeenInk, a site dedicated to providing teens a way to express themselves through poetry, essays, stories, art, and photography.

Nolan Flaherty’s essay “Until That Day Comes” was honored with an Editors’ Choice award by the site. Nolan described the work as “a journey into the dark days of our ‘golden’ years.” Here’s an excerpt:

Four doors down the hallway lives another man, who lies back on his bed, cringing at the noise of the harsh plastic crackling beneath his maroon sheets. The deep red bags beneath his eyes swell like balloons as he stares deeply at the ceiling. He lets out a muted sigh. Tomorrow is the one year anniversary of his arrival at the home with his wife Elanor. But following her death two days after moving into the home, he spends his long days alone in the cavernous room that he spent much of his life savings on for the two to share in their last years. Now he has been left there to wonder why some cruel force took his Ellie away from him before he could say goodbye.

The rest of the essay can be found here.

Sam Polk recently had the honor of his writing being chosen by the readers of Teen Ink as the most successful essay of the day. You can read his essay, “A Demon in My Way”, here.

Congratulations to both!