Ten winners strode to the stage to receive a medal, a hasty high-five and a board game amidst raucous applause from their classmates.
All fifth-graders at South School wrote for the "If I Were Mayor" essay contest and, along with the other South students, cheered at the announcement of the top 10 writers Friday.
Founded and sponsored by former Councilman Rich Koon, the contest has been a South School tradition for the past eight years.
Koon, 2nd Ward Councilman J. Rick Mihalevich and 4th Ward Councilman Carlos Graham congratulated the winners and presented their certificates and medals at a school assembly.
Koon started the contest as a "good academic exercise" that "gave the kids something to look forward to," he said.
Also according to tradition, the top two winners will read their essays at the May 4 City Council meeting from the mayor's chair.
Though Koon has seen fifth-graders balk at presenting because of stage fright, he said the teachers usually prepare the students for presenting at the meeting.
"I'm not sure when I was in fifth grade if I would be up for that," he said.
Lydia Craig and Jerica Austin, first- and second-place winners respectively, both grasped their certificates and board games excitedly as they shared their ideas for the improvement of Jefferson City.
Austin wrote about the construction of a museum for children and a roller-skating rink. She is "a little nervous" but eager to read her essay at the meeting, she said.
Craig's vacations to other cities inspired her essay about the creation of a nature reserve and an amusement park in Jefferson City.
"There was a lot of stuff there that we didn't have, so I put stuff in (the essay) that we wanted," she said.
Fifth-grade teachers Gwen Thompson and Casey Massman are proud of the "genuine and unique ideas" in the essays, Thompson said.
In their 12th year of teaching together, Thompson and Massman have read the "If I Were Mayor" essays since the contest's inception.
Though the essays are different each year, many contain common ideas including sidewalk improvements and the creation of a recreation center.
Fifth-graders most often write about "positive ways to fill their free time," and the essays in which students relate local issues to their personal lives rank higher in the contest, Massman said.
Thompson and Massman will attend the meeting after preparing the two students to read their essays.
At the meeting, Thompson and Massman are "like proud parents. We're smiling ear to ear," they said.