Sussex Academy holds Poetry Out Loud competition

After two rounds of competition, junior Chase Reynolds was named winner of the Sussex Academy 2025 Poetry Out Loud contest Dec. 13.

Poetry Out Loud is a national literacy and recitation competition funded by the National Endowment for the Arts. Students are scored on presence, speech, understanding, interpretation, poem complexity and accuracy of recitation.

Chase now goes on to represent Sussex Academy at the state competition, to be held at the Smyrna Opera House Thursday, Feb. 20.

The first-place state winner receives $200 and their school receives $500 to purchase poetry books. The second-place state winner receives $100, with $200 for their school. The first-place winner also gets an all-expenses-paid trip to the national competition in Washington, D.C., in May, where students compete for $50,000 in scholarships and stipends.

Current champion Harrison Dabbs announced Chase as his successor, and current runner-up Jadyn Rodkey served as a prompter during the competition, which was judged by Head of School Kyle Bentley, Chief Academic Officer Janet Owens, STEM teacher Tim Elmer and ELL/English teacher Colin Marine, who also served as the accuracy judge. English teacher Andie Kirtley coordinated the event.

Students Natalia Gatti and Abby Lynne tied for runner-up this year, and students Grace Thomas and Carter Huffman elected to compete.

All students share a love of reading. Chase’s favorite books as a child were the “Magic Treehouse” series, but since then he has developed a deep admiration for the works of Stephen King.

Junior Abby Lynne loved the “Pete the Cat” and “Fancy Nancy” books growing up, and now prefers bestselling author Taylor Jenkins. Sophomore Grace Thomas counts “2001: A Space Odyssey” among her favorite novels. Carter Huffman’s favorite author is Rick Riordan, and freshman Natalia Gatti enjoys the work of Neil deGrasse Tyson.

Student Rhys Humphries served as DJ and sound mixer for the event.