Boothbay Region High School senior Reagan Cola recently won first place in a statewide writing contest on stock market analysis. InvestWrite, a SIFMA Foundation program, holds The Stock Market Game every semester and the prompt for this past semester was to choose a chief executive officer of a large company to research and write about their success.

Cola wanted to research Steve Jobs and the success of Apple because she owns stocks in the company, but she went with Netflix’s CEO Reed Hastings because the company’s growth over the years was fascinating.

“It was really interesting to write about because Netflix just started with this small company, like smaller than Blockbuster. At the time, Blockbuster was such a big company, but Netflix grew and its success pretty much shut Blockbuster down,” said Cola.

Teacher Nick Scott holds the contest every semester and submits the essays to InvestWrite. Scott said Cola is the first BRHS student to win first place.

“It's a fantastic opportunity to take what we learn through our investment unit and stock market game and then apply it to a broader concept. It also enables us to incorporate researching skills, writing skills, peer collaboration and that kind of thing,” Scott said.

With a competition every semester, Scott said students are already working on the next essay which has each student as a sustainable investment advisor, creating an Environmental, Social and Governance fund delivering long-term, sustainable financial returns.

As Cola prepares, she is looking forward to returning to her summer job at Two Salty Dogs and concentrating on getting ready for college – hopefully Lasell College in Massachusetts, where she will play soccer.

In the meantime, her trophy and medal are displayed at home, reminders of her most recent academic success which Cola said was a pleasant surprise.

“I was really surprised I won because I was not as confident going in as I should have been when I usually write essays … but it was really fun.”