Meet the 2015 graduate photo contest winners!
- Tiffany Head | July 09, 2015
For one new mommy who just finished her grade 12 and is currently living in an evacuation shelter in Regina because of forest fires, winning the Eagle Feather News grad photo contest is good and needed news.
Brianna Morin sent to Eagle Feather News a graduate photo of her and her daughter Kessi Cook who was born in March. Morin is a teen mother who just turned 18 years old. She says it was hard being pregnant going to high school and wanted to sleep all the time.
“I was scared to fail. I pushed myself and so did my mother, if it wasn’t for her I’d probably be doing my grade 12 again. She has helped me a lot in school, she was the one to wake me up when I was trying to sleep in,” says Morin, who graduated from Little Red, part of the Montreal Lake community.
Morin’s other biggest challenge came after she had her daughter in the second semester of school. She did home-schooling for 4 weeks before being able to return to classes.
“It was a struggle to bring her to school hauling her around and trying to do my work plus I was breastfeeding and it made it particularly hard because I didn’t like breast feeding in public around people I know,” says Morin.
The advice she gives to other students that have their own challenges are to keep going as eventually you will reap the rewards of hard work.
“Don’t drop out of school; you need your schooling for many reasons. You will make your parents proud. There is so much out there for you to experience and to see, so please finish school because that just the beginning of your exciting future,” says Morin who has applied to the policing program at Saskatchewan Polytechnic in Prince Albert.
Morin says she will be able to buy her daughter more clothes today from the $150 she won for first in the photo contest. She and her daughter are one of the hundreds of evacuees who had to leave their communities and more clothes and supplies would be nice as they have been in Regina for a week already.
The other photo winners are Brendan Kenny Joseph who won $100 for second and Johnny McAdam and Brent Ahenakew who won $50 for third.
Joseph who graduated from Se-Se-Wa-Hum High School on Big River First Nation says he is happy that he won the contest and he will be attending Polytechnic School in Prince Albert for welding. He encourages other students to never give up and finish high school.
McAdam and Ahenakew are as close as brothers, as they grew up together and have been thick as thieves since kindergarten.
McAdam says his biggest challenge was trying to stay interested in the classes, because it would get boring to a point where he would want to walk out of class and go home.
“The school should be inspiring us to become greater than we can ever imagine, school shouldn't be boring it should be fun. At least that's how I hope it should be. The advice I give to other students is don't let anyone get in your way of completing school, just focus on yourself, believe in yourself,” says McAdam
Ahenkew says his biggest challenge was getting bullied because of his height and he would be teased a lot. His family kept on encouraging him to push himself and not to let the bullies get to him and to prove them wrong.
“Every time I went to school couldn't really participate on regular things because of my height but I didn't let that stop me, I still gave it my best and I’m happy where I am today. My advice to students is anything is possible once you set your mind to it, always push yourself and have faith in yourself cause in the end, when you get your diploma it all pays off and it the best feeling ever,” advises Ahenakew.
Their picture was taken behind their gymnasium at Ahtahkakoop First Nation School on the day of their graduation.
Check out last year's winners!
Here are the submissions we received in 2014. Here is our 2015 photo gallery.