TOWSON, MD— Half of the six grand prize winners (“Visionaries”) in Lyric Education’s Annual Dream Big Contest are Baltimore County Public Schools’ students. The Lyric Baltimore contest challenged Baltimore-area students in Grades 5 -12 to create poems, essays, or videos about their dreams for their lives, communities, or schools.

The BCPS students named Visionaries are:

• Xin Yue Lu, Grade 10, Dulaney High School
• Chiemela Nwokoro, Grade 10, Eastern Technical High School
• Graham TerBeek, Grade 6, Dumbarton Middle School

The awards were announced on April 18 during a public awards ceremony at the Lyric Baltimore. The Visionaries received prize packages estimated at $750 in value and shared their winning entries from the stage. Six runners-up (“Dreamers”), including Carmyn Harvin, Grade 11, Kenwood High School, were also honored at the event. An abridged version of the awards ceremony will air on WBAL-TV’s “TV Hill with Jason Newton” program on Sunday, April 24, at 11:30 a.m.

In a news release about Dream Big, Denise Kumani Gantt, the Lyric Baltimore’s director of education, said, “These students have put in the work to imagine impressive, creative solutions to real-life inequities they and others face in their lives. We are always moved by the vision of young people in our community.”

The contest is sponsored by BGE, Bank of America, Comcast, Greenberg Gibbons, and Whiting-Turner. WBAL-TV is a media partner for the contest.