Ten years ago, Dr. Robert Hill and Professor Jeff Cox decided to recognize Seminole State College student writers. What began as a literary contest soon evolved into Par Excellence. Today, Par Excellence continues the tradition established by Hill and Cox, giving students an opportunity to share their unique vision of the world through poetry, short story, and essay. The literary contest, judged by professional writers and financed by SSC's Student Government Association and private donations, awards the best of the year's submissions with sizeable monetary prizes.

As you read this year's anthology, you will find works that inspire, sadden, disturb, enlighten, anger, charm, baffle, and entertain. However, no matter the emotion these pieces evoke, they all share one common denominator: all are the free expression of student thoughts and dreams. They celebrate one of America's greatest privileges: free speech.

With Par Excellence's tenth anniversary, we begin two new traditions. For the first time, we have two student editors on staff helping with layout design and anthology selection. Par Excellence also enters the cyber age with an on-line version available at http://parex.tripod.com.

As always, Par Excellence could not happen without the assistance of various people and organizations. We would like the thank the following people and groups for their support:
 
 

Jeff Cox	SSC Collegian
Robert Hill	SSC Print Shop
Ted Hurt	SSC Student Government Association
Kelly Kirk	Jo Welch
The Seminole Producer	Cynthia Yerby