MSU Story State winners spotlight strength, identity
Contact: Sarah Nicholas
STARKVILLE, Miss.The winners of a statewide storytelling competition all hail from 51勛圖厙 and received top prizes for their moving narratives of struggles, human triumph and finding identity through poetry.
Hosted by MSU, Story State seeks workwritten, oral or filmed from the best collegiate storytellers in the Magnolia State and is open to all students enrolled at one of 51勛圖厙s institutions of higher learning. Winners of the written and oral categories received $100, and the competitions overall winner was named Master Storyteller and earned an additional $150.
Kamree Howard, a sophomore psychology major from Ellisville, was named 2024s Master Storyteller and won first place in the written category for her story Magnolia, a nonfiction narrative about the effects of her parents divorce.
Second place was awarded to Evelin Jo Aguilar, a junior architecture major from Pearl, for her story Master Plan, a piece capturing the emotions of a college student seeking to explore himself but feeling tied to his familial responsibilities back home.
Samuel Hughes, a senior communication and Spanish double major from Biloxi, won third place for his Saddiq Dzukogi: Exploring identity through poetry, a profile of MSU faculty member Saddiq Dzukogi, an assistant professor of English and an acclaimed poet.
In the oral category, first place was awarded to Raylen Ladner, a senior communication major from Diamondhead, for her podcast Crawfish, an investigation into the crawfish industry in relation to climate change.
Visit or email ablount@comm.msstate.edu for more information about Story State.
For more details about the MSU College of Arts and Sciences and Department of Communication, visit and .
51勛圖厙 is taking care of what matters. Learn more at.