The 17-year-old winner of this year's Tom Pettit Thanksgiving Essay competition is grateful for the ability to revisit her deceased mother in her dreams.

"A dream is defined as a sequence of images or a reverie. It is a complete shut off of the mind, where your subconscious takes over and you are allowed to free. My dreams however, are special. This is the place where I get to speak to my mom," Berkeley Institute student Da-Nae' Gibbons wrote in her essay.

Miss Gibbons lost her mother when she was just eight years old.

"My mom, went to the hospital and never came back," she wrote.

The Tom Pettit Thanksgiving Essay Competition was founded in 1997 to celebrate the spirit of American Thanksgiving in Bermuda, while affording young writers the opportunity to showcase their talents and win monetary grants. All the Island's secondary school students were challenged to write a 500-word essay on the topic, "Why I Am Thankful".

This year's winner, Miss Gibbons, was given an $1,000 grant at an intimate awards ceremony held at Camden on Thursday evening. Minister of Works and Engineering Dennis Lister presented the award on behalf of Education Minister Randy Horton who could not be present.

Also in attendance was Patricia Pettit who created the competition in memory of her late husband, Tom Pettit an Emmy-award winning NBC-TV journalist who briefly lived in Bermuda. Mrs. Pettit is principal in the marketing consultancy firm Pembroke Atlantic Ltd.

"The contest has been going on now for a decade," she said. "It has grown through the number of participants and also through the number of grants we have been able to distribute throughout the years."

The competition comes under the Pettit Grants, now a registered charity in Bermuda.

"That means that as the years go by it could certainly increase in scope," said Mrs. Pettit. "So you may be seeing other kinds of things about writing and journalism coming up. We know we have some great writers in this room, so some other opportunities might be coming up in the future."

To date about $40,000 has been donated to schools and students to support an interest in writing and journalism.

The 2006 competition was judged by writers Florenz Maxwell, Bob Amesse, representing The Royal Gazette, and Nigel Regan, representing the Bermuda Sun.

"We are often asked did the judges really read all of those essays?" said Mrs. Pettit. "The answer is 'yes'. In fact, I was asked recently how many were read or submitted over the years and we figured out there were almost 2,500. I am happy and proud to say I have read them all. They are always a great Thanksgiving present for me."

In a special taped broadcast, veteran NBC broadcaster Tom Brokaw said he was pleased to once again support the essay competition.

"Over the years this contest has been entered by students across Bermuda," he said. "I am once again pleased to support this competition in the name of my old friend and colleague, Tom Pettit. It is now entering its second decade and it continues to showcase the grateful words of Bermuda's teenagers."

After the prizes were awarded, Miss Gibbons told The Royal Gazette she was in her last year at Berkeley Institute, and hopes to go to university to study journalism.

"My English teacher Scott Morkin assigned the essay," she said. "I was surprised when my name was called as the winner. I do think my mother would be very proud of me."

Miss Gibbons is the daughter of the late Deanne Gibbons and lives with her aunt, Lucrecia Ming.

Students from the Berkeley Institute did very well in the competition with three other students from the school receiving $500 in finalist awards including Sylvia Usher, Christopher Douglas and Jakea Simons. Other finalists included Camille Creary, of the Bermuda High School, Aaron Daniels of Mount Saint Agnes and Ryan Pacheco of Warwick Academy.