our history

Almost every school throughout the nation has a football team, a basketball team, and a wrestling team. Why not a writing team? Why not a season of interscholastic writing events? Why not a regional competition for the best young writers in Ohio? Why not a State Finals to measure and reward the art of written expression?

These were the questions that inspired the vision and led to the birth of Power of the Pen in 1986 by its present Executive Director, Lorraine B. Merrill.

Lorraine's first interscholastic tournament was held at Nordonia Junior High School and attracted just a handful of schools. But more importantly, the initiative helped earn her recognition as a Christa McAuliffe Fellow by the U.S. and State Departments of Education (1988). As a consequence, she was granted a year's sabbatical to bring to life her vision of blending innovative teacher training with interscholastic writing competitions as a means of strengthening academic achievement among students at the middle school level. This was accomplished (1988-1989) with substantial funding support from the Gund, Knight, and Cleveland Foundations.

Incorporated as a 501(c)(3) organization at that time, the program has since grown to become one of Ohio's largest educational enhancement programs. More than 120,000 middle school students will benefit from Power of the Pen instructional methodologies this year, including more than 8,000 who will compete in formal Power of the Pen interscholastic writing tournaments.

Major Milestones In Power of the Pen’s History

1986
Power of the Pen™, first called Olympics of the Pen, originated in 1985-86 as a single interscholastic writing tournament funded by the Martha Holden Jennings Foundation. Nordonia Junior High School hosted the event attended by 170 students and 28 teacher-judges from 15 neighboring school districts.

1987
24 schools formed a coalition dedicated to the expansion of the program. Through the efforts of this interscholastic advisory board and supported by continued funding from the Jennings Foundation and the Knight Foundation, the Ohio Interscholastic Writing League (OIWL) was born. In one year, it was able to coordinate a season of three preliminary writing tournaments that culminated in a Northeastern Ohio Regional Tournament at Akron University.

1988
The program creates its first computerized scoring program for an Apple IIe. By the end of the season, on-site computerized scoring completely displaces manual scoring.

The Founder, Loraine Merrill, is honored as a Christa McAuliffe Fellow and is given a one year sabbatical (with salary paid by the U.S. Department of Education) to create a State program.

First publication of the Book of Winners.

1989
Power of the Pen incorporates as a non-profit educational program under the Board Chairmanship of Robert Chaffin of General Motors. With grants from the George Gund Foundation and continued funding from Jennings and Knight, its base strengthens with participation throughout Northeastern Ohio and the Miami Valley Region in Central Ohio. The first State Tournament is held at the College of Wooster with significant support from GM and Rubbermaid.

Power of the Pen develops reliable programming for gridding tournaments. Employing Apple computers, the State Office creates a comprehensive library of matrices; this program requires substantial manual manipulations of the data.

1990
Power of the Pen hosts its first State Tournament at Denison University.

Apple IIGS computers displaces Apple IIe as Power of the Pen's computer platform
First meeting of the State Committee - a network of teacher writing team coaches from across the State of Ohio.

In-house publication of first volume of the Book of Prompts.

1992
Gary Johnston of American Greetings succeeds Robert Chaffin as Chairman of the Board.

The Southwest Ohio Coordinator is added as a paid staff position.

Existing in-house computer platform replaced by the Macintosh. Power of the Pen creates its first comprehensive, completely integrated central data file.

1994
First Trustee mini-retreat, Mansfield, Ohio, resulting in the draft of the officially sanctioned Mission Statement with the help and guidance of a Sprint facilitator.

1995
Barbara Neikirk succeeds Gary Johnston as Chairman of the Board.

1996
First Trustee retreat at Mohican State Park, Ohio.
Power of the Pen develops a scoring program for Macintosh computers.

1997
EDS collaborates in writing a "stand alone" computer gridding program for in-house use (PC platform).

Process of decentralizing Ohio's District tournaments begins.

1998
Macintosh displaces Apple throughout all of Ohio as the on-site tournament computer scoring platform.

Len Gray assumes the Chairmanship of the Board.

1999
Power of the Pen undertakes a major rewriting of the District, Regional, and State Macintosh scoring programs.

The Board completes all formalities securing the copyright and trade-mark registrations of Power of the Pen's name and properties.

Power of the Pen goes on-line with the web site, www.powerofthepen.org

2001
The College of Wooster assumes the role as official host site for a much expanded Power of the Pen State Tournament. It offers the first full college scholarship for POP's Promising Young Talent Award.

2003
Power of the Pen undertakes a complete reorganization and revision of its central data files, and installs all relevant new school data State-wide obtained from the Ohio Deparment of Educations's data bank. It also creates a new data base of elgibile schools for a supplementary program, Power of the Pencil, then in its early developmental stages.

2004
Power of the Pen transfers all of its published Coaches' training and supplementary materials to its website. The program takes its first steps towards full on-line registration.

The Board reorganizes under the joint chairmanship of Gary Johnston and Nancy Cox.

2006
Power of the Pen launches an adjunct program, Power of the Pencil, to bring creative writing enrichment to students at the 5th and 6th grade levels. Enabling grants for the program are secured from The Ohio Arts Council, The Turner Foundation, The GAR Foundation, and The Martha Holden Jennings Foundation.