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Junior Ben Shelton was awarded a first place trophy from InvestWrite, a statewide essay competition,  in a surprise presentation in Mr. Gavron’s Stocks class on Monday morning.

InvestWrite, a program run by SIFMA, the Foundation for Investor Education, holds competitions for students in grades 4-12 twice a year. Participants submit essays about stocks and investing strategies. Students from Wayland High School have been finalists in the competition for the past four years, but Shelton is the first from Wayland to win first place.

“We’re very excited to keep the legacy,” said Elizabeth Reidel, InvestWrite regional director, who presented Shelton with the award.

The essay prompt this fall semester was to write about how to differentiate investing strategies for short-term goals and long term goals. In the essay, the students also had to discuss investing in stocks, bonds, and mutual funds.

Participants also had to include various finance terms and the effects of each on their investing strategies. In Ben’s essay, he compared buying a car as a short-term goal with retirement as a long-term goal.

For winning first place in the state, Shleton won a $100 American Express gift card, a certificate, and a trophy with the inscription, “Benjamin Shelton, Wayland High School, InvestWrite, Fall 2009, Massachusetts 1st place, High School Division.” Mr. Gavron, Ben’s business teacher, also received a $50 gift card.

Top essays at the state level are submitted to judging on the national level. Before divulging who had won, Reidel said, “I want to put the essay contest into perspective because our essay competition is getting much more competitive as the years go on.”

According to Reidel, almost 10,000 students nation-wide participated in the competition this fall semester, but only 2,500 were submitted to the national round of judging. About 50% of those 2,500 were at the high school level, and just 55 students from Massachusetts made it through.