In honor of Women’s History Month in March, UW-Eau Claire awarded nine awards to women for their work on female issues during an awards celebration.

Senior Anita Reid took third place in the undergraduate research category for the Helen X. Sampson award at the women’s studies ceremony. Reid’s award was for her project titled “Paper `Girls’: Women Workers in the Eau Claire Paper Industry, 1882-1900” that she did for a history research class. Her project was about women workers who went on strike at the Eau Claire Paper Mill, focusing on their working conditions at the time.

Reid, who was in Hawaii when the awards were presented, has won awards like this before. She said she tied for second place a couple years ago for a project she did on women nurses who worked during the Vietnam war.

Senior Tracy Miller received the Edna Castleman John Poetry Award for a collection of five poems she wrote about relationships, love and friendships.

“I was extremely honored,” said Miller, adding that the $100 prize was also a nice perk.

The first-place winners of the Helen X. Sampson award in the graduate category include 2000 graduate Diane Kujak for her project called “Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry: Challenge Critique and Negation of African-American Stereotypes in the Works of Mildred D. Taylor,” and graduate student Stephanie Larson for her project called “Beulah’s Oriental Ballerina in Rita Dove’s `Thomas and Beulah.'”

In the undergraduate category, the first-place award went to senior Christine Kadonsky for her project titled “Milkmaids and Homemakers: The Visual Representation of Rural Women of the Upper Midwest, 1900-1940.” Second place went to senior Rachel Noble for her project called “Wit and Wifely Submission: An Examination of Beatrice’s and Hero’s Responses to Marriage.”

The first-place award for the Helen X. Sampson award in the undergraduate creative project category went to senior Liv Aanrud for her abstract paintings.

Sophomore Barbara Coleman won the Margaret John Carlson Fiction Award for her children’s book “The Wuzzles” and 2000 graduate Kimberly Newport won the Mary Catherine and Caroline Kessler History Award for her project titled “A Modern Edition of `Matrimonial Trouble,’ a play by Margaret Cavendish, Duchess of Newcastle.”

The winners received $100 for first place, $50 for second and $25 for third place.