Ross student wins national essay contest

Jackson Calbreath, a seventh-grader at Emilie J. Ross Middle School, apparently has talent no one new about. On top of that, the hidden ability got discovered by accident. 

Jackson said no one had ever told him how well he could write, not even his own mother. But mom Rhonda Bird wanted Jackson to accomplish something before heading to a rabbit convention in San Diego last month.

“We were pulling him out of school for six days,” she explained. “So in order to pull him out of school we wanted an educational thing done before he went.”

That became a five-paragraph essay for Reading Rockets. The young readers’ website offers The Exquisite Prompt national essay contests each month. Jackson wound up winning the sixth through eighth grade division for October.    

“It was like a good two days,” Jackson said, asked how long it took him to compose his award winner. “Most of the time I was trying to think what to write about.”

Jackson finally thought about the queen-sized quilt hanging in the upstairs hallway at home. June Ayers, his great grandmother, had hand-knitted the blue blanket after her husband (George Ayers) cut squares from various material at their Sanger home.

“I am a quilt sitting on a quilt stand in the upstairs hallway,” The Quilt reads. “I spend my days keeping a piece of wood warm while I collect dust. The family goes by me every morning and evening, but nobody talks to me or comments about how pretty I am. I just sit and collect dust and the dogs walk down the hallway and rub up against me.”

The essay is published on the Reading Rockets website and Jackson will be receiving several autographed books for his effort.

Jackson’s winning ways continued at the Nov. 1-5 American Rabbit Breeders Association national convention. He and his brother Colton entered an educational contest and both took firsts in their age group. One of Jackson’s rabbits almost earned a Best of Breed and his Trianta took third out of the largest showing with 25 in its class. Colton also fared well, with his Polish rabbit earning a third place ribbon for the 7-year-old.

Rhonda Bird works as a resource specialist at Denair Middle School and his father, Rick Calbreath, is a special education teacher in Delhi.

Unfortunately for the print media, Jackson does not want to be a writer when he grows up. He wants to become a veterinarian and a rabbit judge. His mother said he’ll be ready for the rabbit judge gig in just two years and he can earn $400 a show, with shows just about every weekend.