NATCHEZ — Four Cathedral High School students recently received recognition as award winners in statewide essay writing competitions.

Cathedral students Arden McMillin, Deanna Hayden, Jay Vaughan and Caroline Downer participated in this year’s Mississippi Letters About Literature writing contest.

Nearly 50,000 students across the country participated in this year’s competition, a reading promotion program of the Center for the Book in the Library of Congress.

In Mississippi, 542 students competed across all three-competition levels in grades 4 through 6, 7 through 8, and 9 through 12.

To enter, students wrote a personal letter to an author explaining how his or her work changed their views of the world or of themselves.

Students can select authors from any genre — fiction or nonfiction, contemporary or classic.

The contest theme encourages students to explore their personal response to a book and then express that response in a creative, original way.

McMillin, a junior at Cathedral, took top honors in this year’s contest.

Judges selected McMillin’s letter to Aldous Huxley, author of “Brave New World,” as the first-place winner in the Level III competition for grades 9 through 12.

“The people in Brave New World are so terrible, awful, strange, backwards-smack,” wrote the 17-year-old student. “My mental list of insults stopped when I realized that having my nose in this book was more like having my nose rammed into a crystal clear mirror. The unbelievable lifestyles and practices of the World State were not just familiar; they were utterly recognizable.

“Brave New World changed my view of the world I live in by opening my eyes to the present-day dangers of conformity, self-indulgence, conditioning, and utopian-turned-totalitarian governments.”

Cathedral junior Jay Vaughan was named a finalist in the same competition for his letter to the “Brave New World” author, and senior Caroline Downer received honorable mention for her letter to “The Fault in Our Stars” author John Green.

Also receiving first-place honors in a statewide competition was Cathedral junior Deanna Hayden for her entry in the Garden Clubs of Mississippi High School Essay Contest.

Open to students in grades 9 through 12, the contest is a branch of the National Garden Club Scholarship competition and is sponsored locally by the Natchez Garden Club. The theme for this year’s contest was “Today’s Choices Affect Tomorrow’s World.”

Hayden said she was deeply appreciative of being selected.

“Since receiving the Garden Club Scholarship, I feel I have moved a step forward,” Hayden said. “I will work very hard and eventually give something back to others, both as a lawyer and future leader of my community and country.”

Both McMillin’s and Hayden’s winning essays have advanced to national competition.

The three award winners in the Mississippi Letters About Literature competition were honored at a Mississippi Library Commission reception Friday in Jackson.