Whiz Kid: St. Michael-Albertville Senior Wins State Letters About Literature Competition

Tyler Sturos takes his love of writing very seriously.

He examines his choice of words prior to putting pen to paper, or, fingers to keyboard.

He goes through rough drafts tediously, making changes where suggested. Or, not.

“Ty’s a thinker, that’s for sure,” said Sheri Larson, his creative writing instructor at St. Michael-Albertville High School. “You can see that in his writing style. It’s very meticulous. He chooses his words wisely.”

That attention to detail has earned Sturos some statewide recognition.

The senior has eanred first pirze in the National Library of Congress’ Letters About Literature competition at the state level, which was coordinated locally by the Minnesota Humanities Center. His work, a letter to poet Ken Hada, was selected from about 2,000 entries statewide.

“I was interested in the contest after hearing about it because the criteria wasn’t so specific. It was asking about a piece of literature that makes you think. It was something I really liked the idea of,” Sturos said.

It was a bit of coincidence that drew Sturos to Hada’s “That Evening.”

“I was actually listening to National Public Radio, and I heard Garrison Keillor read it as part of 'The Writer's Almanac.' It really kind of slipped in. I was actually reading a different book at the time, and I stopped, and started listening. And I thought, ‘Wow. I really like this.’ So I shared the idea with Mrs. Larson and she really liked it.”

Larson said she had heard the same radio broadcast, so the student and teacher were on the same page immediately.

“I had just asked him what piece he was considering. And it was like, this is it,” she said.

Sturos said he was drawn to the piece because it reminded him of his late great-grandfather, a man he remembered well. The piece talks about the “red earth” moved at a funeral for man, and Sturos’ mind raced to his great-grandfather’s burial.

Tyler was one of nine St. Michael-Albertville students to advance from prelim rounds to the state level. In winnings tate, he’s been awarded a $50 gift card to Target and a $50 certificate to Common Good Books in St. Paul.

In addition, he will be recognized Saturday, April 16, at the Minnesota Council of Teachers of English at their annual convention.

At the national competition, the letter could win Sturos up to $10,000 in grant money which he could award to a local library.

In 2009, Amelia Leuer, who is the older sister of the late Annette, wrote a letter about a piece that reminded her of her sister’s tragic accident, and the emotion wrapped in both the piece and real-life events. She won the national prize and donated $5,000 to the STMA High School library and to the St. Michael-Albertville-Hanover library in St. Michael.

In both Leuer’s and Sturos’ case, Larson and the student reached out to the author for a response. In Leuer’s case the author did reply with a personal letter to her.

But Sturos isn’t really worried about whether or not he hears from Ken Hada, or if he wins the big money.

“It’d be nice, but I think it’s already great to see that my work went somewhere. It’s kind of nice that, once my work was done, it pleased somebody. I’m more impressed with that, I think,” he said.

As for his post-graduation plans, Sturos is looking abroad. He’s hoping to use another medium – photography – to capture Finland.

“I’d love to put together some sort of photo book that people could leave out on their tables,” he said. “With some writing in it, of course.”