So, if you flip a switch, why do the lights come on?

Haines High School senior Jordan Stigen not only had the answer, but described this bit of electrical magic well enough to win a regional writing contest over high school juniors and seniors from across Southeast Alaska.

As her reward, she’ll travel with a parent on an all expenses paid trip to Cape Canaveral, Fla., next month to watch a satellite launch.

Tom Brady, chief technology officer for Microcom, announced Stigen’s win at a school assembly Tuesday. Microcom, a company that contracts with DirecTV and Dish Network to provide satellite television, internet and phone service to communities in Alaska, hosted the contest.

The announcement was met with thunderous applause from Stigen’s classmates and Stigen’s face brightened, well, as if someone flipped a switch. But when offered the microphone to say something in front of her peers, all she could muster was a thank you.

“I feel great,” Stigen said of the upcoming trip. “It’s going to be a great experience.”

Two other students from Haines High School also submitted essays to answer the prompt.

Brady said Microcom was looking for four main components in the essays: science, economics, the role of government, and English and grammar. He said Stigen answered the prompt very well, and her essay was well-written and researched.

Principal Rene Martin spoke to a group of middle school students about Stigen’s accomplishment after the assembly: “You never know what may come your way when you put forth a little effort.”

The satellite is a project of the Hughes Network, a nationwide company, to expand on broadband service around the United States. Microcom “has one small piece of it,” Brady said.

“This gives us another product to sell out to rural Southeast Alaska for really good broadband that they don’t have access to now,” Brady said. Service will be 10 times faster with the new satellite than the existing network. This will affect Haines, Skagway, Hoonah, Gustavus, Angoon, Ketchikan, Petersburg, Wrangell, Prince of Wales Island and other communities throughout Southeast.

In her essay, Stigen discussed how people get electricity and described some of the “great men” of the past who helped develop electric power. She ended with information about how Haines specifically gets its power.

So why do the lights come on? Stigen impressed the judges with her no-nonsense handling of sheer economics.

She quoted her father, Gary, who told her the family’s lights come on “because he pays the electric bill.”

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