Emily Eagan of Sleepy Hollow and Amelia Rose Bonvento of Tarrytown received awards from the mayors and accolades from their families, friends and teachers at the Hall of Fame Essay Contest awards ceremony held May 26 at the Warner Library. Sleepy Hollow Mayor Kenneth Wray and Tarrytown Mayor Drew Fixell each presented $250 cash prizes to the winners. To write their essays, students had to gather facts and stories about important local individuals from the resources of the Warner Library and the Historical Society. The winners were chosen from more than eighty entries submitted to the seventh annual contest this year. The essays were judged by a “blind” panel from the Historical Society Serving Sleepy Hollow & Tarrytown and the Hudson Valley Writers’ Center, for historical accuracy, originality and composition. Each year the Villages of Sleepy Hollow and Tarrytown provide prizes to the winners.
Emily Eagan chose Cornelia Beekman for her essay because of the “significance of Cornelia Beekman’s name, and the intriguing less-known role she played in the American Revolution,” combining her favorite subjects of History and English. Amelia Rose Bonvento who has had her poetry published in Celebrating Poetry (in 3rd Grade), and Inspired (in 9th Grade) wrote about poet “Minna Irving: A Profound Character On and Off the Page.” Cornelia Beekman and Minna Irving now join Washington Irving, John D. Rockefeller, Jr., Frank Romer Pierson, John C. Fremont, and others in the Sleepy Hollow and Tarrytown Hall of Fame.
Stop by the Warner Library, take the elevator to the third floor, and view the winning essays framed and mounted along the wall. You can also read the winning essays at the Library’s website www.warnerlibrary.org. The Warner Library is located at 121 North Broadway in Tarrytown.
