Over the summer, the Wisconsin Capitol Centennial Commission held a competition in honor of Wisconsin’s capitol building turning 100 years old. It was announced that Arrowhead senior Alyssa Wulf won first place.

The contest accepted art pieces as well as essays. Entries were accepted from students in kindergarten through twelfth grade from all over Wisconsin. The art or essay had to highlight the Capitol building and what it means to Wisconsin, according to https://capitol100th.wisconsin.gov.

Essays were required to be one page long at most, as well as typed or legibly written. Art pieces had to be two-dimensional, unbreakable, and 24 by 30 inches or less. Art also had to be able to be mounted on a board if not already in a frame, for displaying purposes.

Entries were accepted from September 1st through October 13th, though Wulf wrote her essay over summer break.

“I ultimately entered the competition for my composition class, but I also thought it was an interesting topic to talk about and I enjoyed writing about it,” says Wulf.

Wulf was in English teacher Elizabeth Jorgensen’s online composition class last summer and drafted the essay initially as an assignment.

Over two hundred contest entries were received, with one art winner and one essay winner chosen from each grade, according to the Capitol’s website.

Jorgensen says all 32 of her online summer school composition students submitted essays to the competition. “All of the students who participated received a certificate and a letter,” she says.

Wulf said she never expected to win the competition. In fact, she says that she forgot she submitted a piece over the summer, and was very surprised to hear that she was awarded first place.

“It was an awesome surprise and I had no idea what a big deal it was,” says Wulf. “Overall, I think others should enter with an open mind because you never know what might come from it.”

Wulf said she ran into trouble finding inspiration for her essay, as she didn’t know much about Wisconsin’s Capitol building before the contest. She said found the topic hard to talk about because of the difficulty of originality they were looking for.

“I decided to research more about it. From that research I tried to connect the history to myself and tried to think of how I could make my essay more personal,” says Wulf.

Despite her brief struggle, Wulf says she recommends entering this contest. She says she learned a lot about the Capitol, and she also grew as a writer.

Wulf entitled her essay “Forward.” You can read it here:

Forward

If you think about it, our Wisconsin State Capitol’s history relates to the history of people and events that have occurred in everyone’s lives. It represents the struggles and rough times we have gone through, and the reconstruction of ourselves to overcome those challenges. The Wisconsin State Capitol is full of history that has a correlation to the lives of our people, and it is cool to realize this relation and have this monument be what represents our state.

For example, the 1904 fire that occurred and ruined some of the Capitol did not stop it from growing and becoming an even greater Capitol than before. It arose from the ashes and by 1917 it had finally been finished. Even after that they were not done improving it, and 15 years later they re-gilded the statue “Wisconsin”, which represents the motto, “Forward”, of Wisconsin. From there the Capitol kept moving forward when the Rotunda was renovated to include more beauty within the walls of the building. Finally, the Capitol was named a National Historic Landmark in 2000-2001, and recognized for the hard work put into it.

This history of the Capitol relates to us people because of the destruction that takes place within our lives and how we can, with the right mindset and perseverance,  rebuild ourselves to be even greater than ever before. It shows the role of us Wisconsinites to keep moving forward no matter how long it takes us or the delays that may happen in the process. When we look at our Capitol we can see the history that has made it to be what it is today and what our state has accomplished. We also can see the trials and tribulations that have caused us to be stronger than we ever could have been, individually and together as citizens of Wisconsin.

The Capitol is a true representation and reminder of our hard work and our accomplishments through it all. We can use the dedication to the Capitol and the history being made there as a device to push all of us to work harder and create our own history. It also contains beautiful murals and paintings that we can admire and use to learn more about our history through the stories they tell. Overall, the Wisconsin Capitol is a mere representation of the Wisconsin history and our dedication to keep moving our state forward.

An excerpt from Wulf’s essay can also be found on the Capitol’s website at https://wisconsin.gov/sites/capitol/Pages/ArtEssayWinners.aspx.