Henderson Oracle

Issue date: 11/9/09 Section: Features

Media Credit: Judea Jackson Small town, big honor - Graduate student Jim Miller reads a back issue of The Nation, a weekly magazine featuring political and social issues. Miller won a recent contest the magazine held asking students to talk about how the recession has affected them. "Growing up in areas like this is becoming harder, and so the numbers of young are dwindling, and small, rural areas are drying up," Miller wrote in his essay. "A graduating class of forty students has become a class of twenty, and the only explanation is that there are no local jobs." The Nation selected one winner in college and one in high school.

When first year graduate student Jim Miller stumbled across an advertisement for a writing contest for The Nation, he had no idea that he would be declared the winner. "I was glad to be able to represent my university," Miller said. "We have a lot of great professors here who have helped me to become a better writer."

The Nation, established in 1865, is a magazine that features opinions on politics and today's culture, but one does not have to be a politically savvy person to read and appreciate the writing. This year for the fourth annual Nation Student Writing Contest, the editors asked for an 800-word essay telling how the recession had affected them. There were more than 500 submissions from 44 different states.

Eight finalists were chosen, with one high school winner and one college winner. The winners each received an online and print publication as well as a cash prize of $1000; all other finalists were awarded $250 each. Henderson's own Jim Miller was picked as the winner for the college division.

"I think it was chosen because it was personal and it applied to the recession from a small town point of view," Miller said.

Miller's essay, "The Natural Order of a Small Town," focused on how the recession had affected the small, rural towns that many around here find all too familiar. He mentioned Affiliated Southwest, which was a food distributor here in Arkansas that suddenly declared bankruptcy this past summer. Miller explained how this has left many small-town grocery stores and their owners in a bind. They had to find new distributors or use funds they had saved up to allow their business to survive.

Continued...

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