Beyond the Blue & White Outstanding Student Award 2023

Below you can read the winning essays. As the essays were all handwritten, the formatting, spelling, and grammar have all been preserved as best as possible.

Olton is a great place to live because of many great locations including the school, the restaunts, and the local library.

The first way Olton is a great place to live is school. At school we get to interact with friends and loving teachers. We learn so much at school that some days I think my brain will overflow. The teachers at H.P. Webb Elementary School love us and help us wherever they can. School is the best place to make friends who will stick with you even through hard times.

The second way Olton is a great place to live is the restaurants. There are so many restaunts to choose from. When I first arrived, I was in awe by how many family owned restaunts there were in Olton, such as Lara’s, Anna’s, Pizza Parlor, Rejino’s, Josies Hula Hut, and more. The fact that so many families love to serve the community in food service just mesmorizes me. My personal favorite is Rejinos because of their delicious barbecue and happy hour drinks.

My final favorite place is the local library. It is my favorite place to go when we leave school early and have time to go. The local library hosts so many events all year long. I am filled with joy when I see so many books in the library. I love the hospitality of this cozy place of information and entertainment. Books bring us all together in so many ways.

In conclusion, Olton is a great place to live for so many reasons, but in this essay I do not even scratch the surface. I love Olton because it is the best. The school, restaurants, and local library are my favorite places in Olton.

Music Shop

If I could open a business in Olton, it would be a music store. Playing an instrument has many benefits, including: boost your team skills, teaches you perseverence, enhances your coordination, betters your mathematic ability, and much more!

This shop would sell a myrian of musical instuments, as well as guitar strings, picks, music stands, microphones, and of course, speakers. In additions to this, the store would have concert band equipment, such as drum sticks, reeds, neck straps for saxophone, and valve oil.

Another feature of the shop would be practice sessions and music lessons. in the store, you would be able to pay to practice with one of the larger, more expensive items for a cheap cost. Likewise, you could go to the shop and buy a lesson with a trained musician.

In conclusion, the music shop would have many things to buy or do, from purchasing accessories for an old instument, to buying a new one.

In the next five to ten years, I hope to find myself wither still being in medical school or starting my own surgical practice. With medical school being such a hassle and a long process, I would be very lucky to start my own practice within that time frame, but I will just be just as happy if I am still in medical school during that time frame. If I am in medical school during this time, then I will continue until I graduate. From there I will finally be able to start my journey up the medical ladder. More than likely I will graduate from medical outside of the five to ten year time frame but during this time frame a lot will be going on for my medical career.

If I had to explain Olton to someone who has never been here before, I would use the words small and close community, and the term “don’t judge a book by its cover.” Of course, with Olton having a small population everyone would consider our town small but that does not matter here. In Olton our community is closer than most other small towns. Many families have lived here for all their lives, and other families that have more recently moved here are also close and very engaged within the town. If a person wanted to move to Olton, I would encourage them to do it because the community in this town is unlike any other. It’s not everyday you see people drive plenty of miles for a football, baseball, or basketball game, and it is even more rare to see as many people show up to a town event like Sandhills. The overall term I would use for Olton is a common phrase, “Don’t judge a book by its cover.”

Simply put, Olton is very much different from what is on the surface. For one the community is close, but one thing that is overlooked in many small towns and schools is academics, athletics, and job opportunities. In Olton we have had many people go to colleges, universities, trade schools, the work force, and even the military. That is not something you will find in other small towns. Here in Olton the students are pushed and encouraged to do great things and that is exactly what is happening here! The athletic programs also excel well. The football team is consistently having winning seasons, the basketball team always finds its way deep into the playoffs each year, the track team always advances many athletes in many events, the tennis team cannot seem to lose in district play, the cheerleading team has had many All Americans, the cross country team brings home medals every year, the baseball team is making history, and the softball team might be new but they too will make history. This success is hard to find in any city or town, but all our student athletes are home grown and have close relationships with the coaching staff and even teammates! The thing that may be a surprise is the job opportunities in Olton. There are families that run many businesses here in town and there are others that are run by members of the community and their friends. Regardless of where a person works, they can get work experience in many different fields. From irrigation experience at Valley-Ag Electric to learning how to cook a top 50 brisket in the state at Rejino Barbeque and Market, Olton has so much to offer as a small town.

Although the high school may be classified as a 2A, and the population is known to be small, Olton is not to be overlooked. The little town twenty minutes west of Plainview, Texas has so much to offer, and it will only grow and get better with the years. Olton may not be known nationally, but to the people who call it home it means so much.