CHAPEL HILL—Lexie Triblehorn of Research Triangle High School and Andrew Esterly of Gray’s Creek High School won top honors in the North Carolina Governor’s Highway Safety Program Click it or Ticket Scholar-Athlete essay contest. Winners were chosen blindly by a panel of judges from the North Carolina Department of Transportation and NCHSAA with criteria that included originality, content, organization and grammar.
The North Carolina Governor’s Highway Safety Program Click it or Ticket Scholar-Athlete program,is one of the Association’s most popular voluntary programs and recognizes excellence in the classroom as well as on the playing court or field. As part of the program, the Click it or Ticket program and NCHSAA offersedthe essay contestannually, with student-athletes submitting a 400-word essayeach semester. The Spring2018issemester’s prompt was: How can you position being a scholar athlete to promote positive behaviors to your peers, such as wearing a seat belt and staying away from drugs and alcohol?
“The Governor’s Highway Safety Program was incredibly impressed with all the essay responses we received,” said Mark Ezzell, director of The Governor’s Highway Safety Program. “To read how young athletes plan to promote positive safety behaviors to their peers is a reminder that this generation does lead by example, and understands the importance of safety measures such as wearing a seatbelt.”
Triblehorn is a sophomore at Research Triangle High School. She plays both volleyball and soccer for the Raptors. In her essay, Triblehorn wrote about her own personal experience losing a friend who did not wear a seat belt in the car. This made her realize the responsibility she had as a scholar-athlete to lead by example and use the skills she learned as a scholar-athlete to influence her peers. Triblehorn wrote, “I wish that there was someone who could have stepped in with courage and judgement. It is in this spirit, that I challenge all of my fellow athletes to embrace our responsibility to ourselves and each other – on the field of play and off – now and for the rest of our lives.”
Esterly is a senior four sport athlete at Gray’s Creek High School. He participates in Track & Field, Soccer, Tennis and Wrestling. Esterly wrote, “From recreational sports to varsity level sports in high school, being involved academically and physically has helped me decide what to do, how to do it, and when to do it. Athletics have helped me prepare for life.” He discussed specific examples from his time as a leader on his athletic teams where he influenced his peers to wear their seat belt in the car and stay away from drugs and alcohol.
The scholar-athlete essay competition female runner-up was Madisun Shore,a senior student-athlete on the Cross Country, Indoor Track & Field and Outdoor Track & Field team at Forbush high School. The male runner-up for the NCHSAA scholar-athlete essay competition was senior tennis student-athlete,Lucas Plott,from Concord High School.
Congratulations to the winners of the NC Governor’s Highway Safety Program Click it or Ticket and North Carolina High School Athletic Association Scholar-Athlete Essay Competition. Learn more about the scholar-athlete program here and look for the fall Scholar-Athlete Essay competition in September 2018!
