The English department hosted its annual Donald Drury awards ceremony on May 15 to honor students who were chosen to receive the award.
This award was established by the close family and friends of Donald Drury to honor his legacy and his career as a teacher of creative writing. The award itself acknowledges students for their exceptional writing in their creative writing classes.
Allison Murray has organized this event since she started working at LBCC in 2001, but the awards themselves have been going on since before Murray joined the English committee, Murray has been keeping the tradition alive.
“I’m always incredibly rewarded on the day of the reception because we get to actually see the students stand up there and speak their own words and receive praise and acknowledgement,” Murray said.
Students across the composition and literary courses that are offered at LBCC are encouraged to submit their best essays for this competition and they can submit in either the expository, persuasive or the literary category.
Students who compete for the award are able to look over their essays for the current or past semester and turn to their professors for guidance during their revision process.
Once all the essay’s have been submitted, faculty members take time to read essays from the pool of applicants and act as judges, evaluating each submitted essay.
Winning students from each category attend the Drury awards ceremony and read excerpts from the pieces that won them the award.
Some students decided to explore personal and emotional subjects in their writing, putting themselves in a vulnerable position when presenting in front of others at the award ceremony.
Award recipient Jessica Edwards wrote a story from personal experience that was inspired by an article she read in her English 1 Honors class. She spoke about how she felt when people started to come up and touch her hair without her consent.
“When I found out I won I was really happy because it made me feel that other people who didn’t have this experience could still understand where I was coming from and appreciate what I had to say,” Edwards said.
Another award recipient, Clare Dickerson read poems that were personal to her and she wrote and shared how talking in class and reading them aloud helped her anxiety with public speaking.
Clare Dickerson reads one of her poems during the ceremony before receiving her award at the Drury awards. The Drury awards were hosted by the English department on May 15 2025 at LAC. (Brianna Apodaca)
“We have to read our poems during the workshop in class and I think that because that’s been such a positive and welcoming environment it’s been easy for me to be able to share those poems with other people,” Dickerson said.
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