Jimmy Mavrikes of Northern High School, center, is the winner of the first Calvert County Poetry Out Loud county competition that was held Jan. 14 at the CalVART Gallery in Prince Frederick.

Poetry Out Loud is a national memorization and recitation contest founded by the National Endowment for the Arts and the Poetry Foundation. The local contest was sponsored by the Arts Council of Calvert County. School competitions were held at Northern and Calvert High Schools.

To compete in the county contest, students had to place first or second in their school's contest. Pictured here are the four participants in the county competition.

From left to right are Montre Dwayne White, Calvert High School; Victoria Hammer, Calvert High School; Jimmy Mavrikes, Northern High School, and Cullen Oliff, Northern High School and runner-up for the county contest.

Teacher sponsors were Michelle Stover and Michelle Clancy at Calvert and Carolyn Kraat at Northern. Mavrikes moves on to compete at the state level on Feb. 21 in Baltimore.