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Galatia fifth-grader wins essay contest about importance of coal

</element><element id="paragraph-1" type="body"><![CDATA[Karley Ratliff, a fifth-grader at Galatia Elementary School, recently won an annual essay contest by the Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Development&#39;s Office of Coal Development. Her essay will be featured in the 2013 Illinois Coal Calendar.

"They write about different topics involving the coal industry," said Ratliff&#39;s teacher, Cindy Fry, who has been encouraging her students to participate in the contest for the past five years.

"I think it promotes awareness of the industry," she said. "Especially in our area, where a lot of my students have family members in the coal industry."

Fry teaches her students a unit on coal before giving them the assignment. Part of the contest is a poster contest, so she assigns the poster project to her class and allows them to write the essay about coal for extra credit.

Out of her 26 students, 10 of them entered the essay contest in addition to completing the poster assignment.

Ratliff said she wrote her essay about "what coal does for us and what it makes for us."

"I talked about if we didn&#39;t have coal how different the earth would be," Ratliff said.

Fry said 12 essays and 13 posters are chosen each year out of the thousands of entries statewide.

An awards reception was held at the Governor&#39;s Mansion in Springfield May 11 for the contest winners and their teachers. Fry and several of Ratliff&#39;s family members accompanied her to the reception, where she received a certificate, a $50 bill and a pyrite dollar.

Ratcliff said she plans to purchase a cell phone with the $50 she received as a result of winning the contest.

Interestingly, Ratliff&#39;s older sister was a contest winner several years ago when she was in Fry&#39;s fifth grade class. Her little brother is currently in fourth grade, so the family is hoping for another win next year.