STEVENS POINT - A poignant profile about the shaky beginnings of an outstanding teacher and community leader—"Kindergarten Dropout"—has won first place for Jo Stewart of Solon Springs in the 2004 Al P. Nelson Feature Writing Contest.

The contest, sponsored by the Wisconsin Regional Writers Association, was judged by Jim Stingl, columnist for The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

"This is a good tale, well told," he said of Stewart's article. "I liked the sharp focus on this pivotal moment in the childhood of the teacher—and the irony that she grew up to be an excellent teacher after such an inauspicious start." He praised the way the writer "grabbed the reader from the very first sentence. Most of us have never met anyone kicked out of kindergarten, so it was hard not to read on."

The Douglas County writer was awarded the $75 first prize at the May 1 WRWA spring conference, held this year at the Holiday Inn in Stevens Point. This is her second trip to the contest's winners' circle. She took second prize in the 2001 competition.

The $50 second prize for 2004 went to John J. Mutter Jr. of Shawano for his boyhood reminiscence, "The Night-Time Rat Hunt."

"I loved the offbeat topic. The writer takes us on a nocturnal visit to the town dump...and the ending is a return to the innocence of childhood," Stingl said.

The $25 third prize was awarded to Betty Smedlund of Kimberly for her compelling account of "The Birthing of a School." "The power of this story," the judge noted, "is the way it taps into the timeless battle of the underdog vs. the powerful school board."

Honorable Mention certificates were awarded to Dorothy Carey of Green Bay for her "No Choir Boys," focusing on volunteer writing instructors for young men at the Green Bay Correctional Institution, and to Kathy Warnes of Toledo, Ohio, a former Wisconsinite, for her historical feature on Milwaukee's battle against cholera in the mid-1800s—"Sister Monica's Healing Hands."

A total of 21 Wisconsin writers entered this year's competition.

The presentations were made by Lola Huber of North Freedom, who acted as emcee. She was the winner of the 2003 contest.

This was the 10th annual Al P. Nelson Feature Writing Contest, which is named after the longtime Delafield free-lance writer and University of Wisconsin Extension writing instructor. Nelson, author of a book on the early days of moviemaking, The Birth of a Nation Story, died in 1994 and his family set up a fund to launch the WRWA contest.