Every year, several seniors at DHS compete in Shooting Stars, a competition for students to get a scholarship by showing off their talents in one of nine arts categories. The categories are: Literature (prose/poetry), Production & Design (formerly theatre technical), Strings, Theatre Performance (including voice), Voice Classical, Winds & Percussion, Two-Dimensional Art, Three-Dimensional Art and Photography.

Senior Simon Couch is participating in the Voice Classical category and was nominated by new vocal teacher, Mindy Fry, and is being accompanied by retired vocal teacher, Mary Etta Copeland.

“I submitted a resume in November, and I have an audition in early February singing a few solo pieces,” Couch said. “I’m just doing songs that I know from festival last year. Mrs. Copeland is accompanying for me, and we’re getting together once before the audition date to review them.”

In the Literature (prose/poetry) category, English teacher Philip Hamilton nominated senior Sydney Hoover to represent De Soto.

“Each finalist is either supposed to write two poems or two prose fiction stories. You go in and you read your story while they record you, and they judge you on your writing,” Hoover said. “I would write anything that came in my head and we [Hamilton and I] then went through and picked the two best ones … Before the stories were due, we sat down with the whole Creative Writing 2 class and read over the stories, so I had eight or nine people look over the story before I submitted it.”

Senior Alyssa Hargrove is representing De Soto in the Photography category, nominated by art teacher Tim Mispagel. Hargrove thinks the most challenging part of Shooting Stars is making sure she has good pictures to turn in.

“I have to take at least eight photos and submit them as a portfolio for them to go through. I have been working hard [on] editing photos and making sure that everybody thinks I have the right eight picked and turn it in,” Hargrove said. “I want to be a wildlife biologist, so it helps with that, too.”

Other nominees from De Soto include seniors: Paden Bedford in Theatre Performance, Emily Euler in Two Dimensional Art and Alexander Gratz in Winds and Percussion. There is an annual Shooting Stars Gala on March 26 where students will find out if they placed and could earn a $1,400 scholarship or a $700 scholarship.