Boothbay Region High School can add another two stars to its growing list of accomplished students. Junior Hali Goodwin won fifth and senior Lilley Harris won seventh nationally for the 2019 spring InvestWrite Stock Market Game essay contest. Earlier this year, senior Reagan Cola found out she was Maine's winner for the 2018 fall Stock Market Game essay.

InvestWrite is a SIFMA Foundation program which holds The Stock Market Game every semester. The prompt for this past semester was to pitch an Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) fund to potential investors.

“We had to make an investment portfolio,” said Harris. “You had to pick one stock, one fund and one bond that you felt held up to ESG investment standards. So you have to look at 'Is this a company that practices safe working condition for employees' and companies that don't play a big role in pollution.”

Goodwin said the essay, 1,000 words maximum, had to defend their portfolio choices as sustainable.

“We also had to pitch companies that would also make a profit for the investors as well – all while being socially conscious,” Goodwin said.

Both students were in teacher Nick Scott's financial literacy class which participated in the InvestWrite competition.

“In addition to Reagan taking the top prize for the state of Maine this past fall, Hali and Lilley placed fifth and seventh in the national competition, which is simply amazing,” Scott said in his email to the students and their parents. “Congratulations again on your impressive accomplishments.”

Scott also shared some of what the InvestWrite coordinator had to say:

“This is a Maine historic accomplishment to have two national winners from thousands of national essays submitted as well as having three InvestWrite Winners in the 2018-19 school year!”

Goodwin said the awards for their accomplishments were big trophies, tons of swag and $100 dollar gift cards each. Harris said that as their teacher, Scott won a $100 gift card for each student.

“He made out because he had two students who won,” said Harris. “And Reagan won the state competition for the fall, so he made bank off Investwrite!”

Asked how they felt about winning, both students said they were pleasantly surprised because they were mostly concerned about studying for Advanced Placement tests.

“It was cool to be on the national level,” said Goodwin. “I don't think people realize how many people entered the competition. Having both of ours picked out of that many was bigger than it seems.”

Said Harris, “Hali and I didn't understand until we were at the awards ceremony. I was like 'What if this is just a thing only Mr. Scott does,' and then when we were at the ceremony and he said there were 50,000 essays they went through that year – it was exciting.”