Matthew Piehler of Plano Wins Writing Contest at Southwestern University

GEORGETOWN, TX (06/12/2012)(readMedia)-- Matthew Piehler of Plano was one of the first recipients of a new writing award given by Southwestern University.

Piehler was one of four students to receive the 2012 Shearn Writing Award, which included a $1,000 prize.

Piehler received the award for the best paper written by students in the Division of Fine Arts. He received the award for his paper titled "Don't Lose Your Head: An Examination of Tikal and Decapitation."

Piehler wrote the paper for an Art of Mesoamerica class taught by Patrick Hajovsky, assistant professor of art history. Piehler said he decided to take the class because he enjoyed the First-Year Seminar he had with Hajovsky, which was titled "Visions & Virgins."

His winning paper was written for an assignment in which students were asked to compare two or more cultural artifacts from Mesoamerica.

"I knew that Matthew's paper stood out, and the committee apparently agreed," Hajovsky said. "His paper, which is on the significance of decapitation to Maya kingship, shows how a good student can take a research project in a brand new field to them and produce a thoughtful and provocative essay."

Piehler will be a junior at Southwestern in the fall and is majoring in psychology. He said the prize money will come in handy since he is trying to pay for almost all of his education himself. "(It) was an incredibly useful ? and unexpected ? surprise," he said.

Southwestern University is a selective, nationally recognized undergraduate liberal arts college with an enrollment of 1,350 students. It is the oldest institution of higher learning in Texas. For more information on Southwestern, visit www.southwestern.edu.