Some of the campus' most talented writers were recognized last week with the Katey Lehman Creative Writing awards.

The contest awards a total of $2,250 to undergraduates who demonstrate writing talent in the three categories of poetry, non-fiction/journalism and fiction. The contest was established by Mary Popp Smeal and husband Frank Smeal in May, 1981 in memory of Katey Popp Lehman, a former columnist for The Centre Daily Times and sister of Mary Popp Smeal.

"It's the first time that I've ever entered anything. I'm really thrilled," said Anna Sprague (sophomore-English), whose three untitled poems won the $400 prize in the poetry category.

Sprague, who writes daily and refers to poets Adrienne Rich and Wallace Stevens as her most significant influences, said she did not consider her submissions to be in their most presentable state.

"I handed in the poems on the last day for submission. It was all in the last minute. They were not in what I would consider to be finished form. The line breaks were not necessarily where I wanted them to be," she said.

Kenneth Van Cara (senior-English), who received $250 for his fictional story "Oh Golden Calf," said he got his story idea from a hot air balloon he saw over campus one afternoon. The story's main character is a fiction writer whose artistic sensibilities are heightened when he sees a hot air balloon. But he cannot get the rest of his family interested in this sight.

"He senses things and can't necessarily make everyone else enthusiastic about them," Van Cara said.

Jeffrey Krouse's story that took the $500 prize in the non-fiction/journalism category was drawn from experience. "Strip-mining a Materialist" details Krouse's work with missionaries in a Costa Rican slum.

"It is a meeting of the culture of the rich with the culture of the poor," Krouse (senior-English) said.

Krouse said he writes in a journal daily and calls his most important influences his English professors and the minimalist work of Raymond Carver.

So what does the future hold for the three winners once they leave the University? Could there be another Ernest Hemingway or T.S. Eliot among them?

"I hope to start publishing soon in poetry journals, maybe work in journalism in some way and do some teaching," said Sprague, whose poems deal with the past and memory.

Van Cara said he plans to get a job and write some stories before going back to school for a doctoral degree in creative writing. Krouse is unsure what he will be doing but might return to missionary work.

This year's winners were chosen by a panel comprising English professors and a senior editor of The Philadelphia Inquirer.