CHARLOTTESVILLE, VA (CVILLE RIGHT NOW) — Out of 141 submissions from middle and high school students throughout Charlottesville and Albemarle County, Western Albemarle sophomore William “Liam” Meador’s poem, “Beyond the Screen,” took first place in a UVA writing contest.

Meador, who has participated in numerous other writing contests both locally and nationally, told Cville Right Now that he wasn’t thinking about whether he would win the contest when he submitted his piece. His focus was on simply sharing his opinion.

“I was thinking ‘I want to show what I personally think about how technology has effected democracy and also how our general ability to communicate with others,'” he said. “That’s what my main goal for this was.”

He added that he believes writing is a good way for students, who may otherwise have trouble express their opinions, put into words what they are thinking about the world around them.

“It’s way not just to tell other but to let some of their ideas out,” he said. “Because a lot of these just stay inside our head, and it lets us open up to what we believe.”

The Center for Community Partnerships and Digital Technology for Democracy Lab at the University of Virginia announced the winners of the “2025 Voice of Democracy Student Writing Contest,” earlier this month. The contest was open to public, private and homeschooled students from 6th though 12th grade in Charlottesville City and Albemarle County, with participants asked to write a piece based on the theme of “Democracy in a Digital World.”

Among the 141 submissions, first, second and third place winners were selected along with one honorable mention. The top prize went to Meador who received $500 and had his piece presented at a private reception Center for Community Partnerships at UVA last week. The second-place winner, J.T. Henley Middle School sixth grader Lennox Meslar, received $250. Burley Middle School seventh grader Gabriel Guex Petros took third place and a $100 prize, and the honorable mention went to Albemarle High junior Milan Mookerjee, who received $50.

Sydney Shuler, the Assistant Director for Communications for the Center of Community Partnerships at UVA, told Cville Right Now that the contest was started last year in response to university-wide requests for community engagement efforts. The inaugural contest is 2024 was put together by the center in partnership with the Karsh institute of Democracy at UVA and centered on the theme of “What Democracy Means to Me,” which led to 42 submissions.

This year, students were asked to answer the question, “How has technology helped or harmed democracy and what should we do next?” The center received 99 more submission than the previous years from a wide range of students, which Shuler called “Really awesome.” She said they had hoped for a boost in interest this year after the inaugural contest, and even had some teachers reach out to inquire about the contest so they could include it in their lesson plans. Still, she said they were surprised by the big jump.

From what she read, Shuler said one of her biggest takeaways from the submissions she read and speaking to the judges was that young people are paying attention to the world around, even when adults think they aren’t, with many submissions focused on current events and both positive and negative things they’ve seen online.

“They seemed empowered by the opportunity to write about it,” she said. “We got everything. We got poems in Spanish and English. We got narratives. We got creative short stories. We got research papers with sources. So, it was also just cool literally hearing the different voice that these students have. It was an honor really.”