SAN ANTONIO — A San Antonio school left Universal Publishing's 2019 National Handwriting Contest with dozens of awards.
The hallowed halls of Atonement Academy are keeping the increasingly lost art of handwriting alive.
"Cursive writing and handwriting in general is the central part of the classical curriculum," said Kristie Weems, a second grade teacher at the school.
This is the eighth year the school has entered the national handwriting contest, and their expectations have only grown in that time.
"Each year we've had more and more winners," Weems said.
In just its twelfth year in existence, the National Handwriting Contest receives thousands of entries. 35 awards are offered, and all but nine were won by the students of Atonement Academy.
Weems's class had three award-winning students: Ethan received an honorable mention; Elise garnered a third-place finish; and Ireland came in second.
"We started with the very basics in kinder of how to hold a pencil correctly, how to have the correct posture down," Weems said. "From there we teach them the basics strokes, and how to fit the strokes together to write or form the letters into writing the words."
KENS 5 caught up with three of the contest's first-place winners, including kindergartener print-lettering champion Caden, who said he isn't quite ready to try his hand at cursive.
"That's kind of hard for me because I'm not in first grade," he admitted.
Fourth-grade cursive champion Gabriela said that while her talents won her an award, she needs some more time to master it.
"It's pretty difficult because you have to get every little curve right," she said.
And finally, Emmanuelle, who's now won awards in multiple years, is taking away 2019's first-place prize for sixth-through-eighth-grade cursive.
"I was kind of surprised," she said. "I didn't really expect to win."