20 Maumee Valley students win honors in Chinese essay contest

Twenty Upper School students from Maumee Valley have been named winners in the 2025 Ohio Chinese Essay Contest, hosted by the Ohio Association of Teachers of Chinese. Their essays were selected from over 500 entries submitted by students across the state.

The Ohio K-12 Chinese Essay Contest is held each year and invites students from elementary through high school to demonstrate their language skills by writing essays in Chinese characters on a given topic. The competition takes place in March, and submissions are evaluated by a panel of experienced Chinese language educators.

Maumee Valley’s Gold Award winners are Abigail Metzger ’27, Samantha Metzger ’27, Mahdia Sadri ’27, Taiba Sadri ’25, and Anthony Tam ’27. Silver Awards were earned by Cranston Bannister ’26, Kareem Doumani ’27, Claire Drerup ’27, Maisie Green ’28, Kade Hayes ’27, Xavier McWilliams ’27, Braden Nichols ’28, Mariam Doumani ’27, and Mari-Yona Shannon ’27. Honorable Mentions went to Cameron Chua ’27, Elise Kaiser ’27, Cam Lloyd ’27, Will Quaid ’26, Brody Ratliff ’28, and Winter Roach ’26.

“I’m so proud of the dedication and effort all my students put into this challenge,” said Carol Yuan, Upper School Mandarin teacher. “They showed great commitment, and their hard work truly paid off.”