Staff Reports
A former Columbus North High School student recently won a national poetry content.
Lindsey Lunsford, a 2008 North graduate, won first place in the Allstate Insurance Company’s “Pillar of Strength” contest.
Contest participants had to submit a video no more than 3 minutes long of them performing original poetry about a person who inspired them, and upload the video to YouTube. Lunsford chose her mother, Rebecca Lunsford, a former teacher at Northside and Central middle schools, as her “pillar of strength.
She was awarded a crystal microphone statue with the first-prize check of $3,000. Both awards were presented to her by the Allstate Insurance Company’s poetry founder and Grammy-award winning artist J. Ivey.
Lunsford earned undergraduate degrees in political science and history from Tuskegee University in Alabama, graduating with honors, and earned a master’s degree from Western State University, located in Gunnison, Colorado. She currently is studying at Tuskegee University to earn her Ph.D. in integrative policy.
Lunsford said she credits Taylorsville Elementary School’s mentoring teachers, Mrs. Colvin and Mrs. Riddle, for their assistance. She described them as “two individuals that helped me when I was very young to deal with racism, while fervently challenging me academically.”
Lunsford also credits Columbus North High School’s inspiring mentors Principal David Clark, Lisa Thompson and Mrs. Clapper, saying all of them “taught me about sacrifice and determination.”
