Whitney Woodard, Tim MacAusland and Jeffrey Fitzwater are this year’s winners of Peninsula College’s Outstanding English Essay Award for the 2012-2013 school year. The three were presented with their awards at the college’s June 11 board of trustees meeting.

The awards, now in their third year, are given annually as recognition for excellent academic writing by Peninsula College students. Each year, the P.C. English division nominates and votes for the best essays written in English classes during the academic year. The submissions must be essays, not poetry or fiction.

Whitney Woodard of Joyce won the first prize of $150 for her essay entitled “Out with the New, Back to the Old.” She wrote her winning essay for a class she took from Janet Lucas. Woodard grew up in Joyce on a small farm her parents built and now is raising her own family of three children on it. She says she loves the farm and wants to stay there forever. “And that’s why I’m finally acquiring an education in hopes that I will be able to get a better job,” she says. “I’m very grateful for the support and help of my family while I am in college.”

Tim MacAusland from Novato, Calif., won the second prize of $75 for his essay entitled “Do We Taste Like Chicken?” He wrote his winning essay in a class he took from Janet Lucas. MacAusland is a first-year student at Peninsula College. He has been acting in school and community plays since he was 11 and graduated with honors in theater arts at the Marin School of the Arts in the San Francisco Bay area. His acting achievements include winning gold for monologues at the 2011 Bob Smart Festival in Sacramento, and more recently representing Peninsula College in Region VII of the Kennedy Center American College Theater Festival. In addition to theater, MacAusland also is interested in writing fiction and has written plays, a novel and zombie scripts.

Jeffrey Fitzwater of the North Cascades took the third prize of $25 for his essay entitled “Spawning Colors.” He wrote his winning essay in a class he took from Helen Lovejoy. Born in Port Angeles, he works as a wildland firefighter for North Cascades National Park. He enjoys fishing for fish big and small, snowboarding on less-traveled slopes and finding himself in long-forgotten places.

The award money for the Outstanding English Essay Awards comes from a special donation made to the Peninsula College Foundation for specific use with the English Essay Awards.