The judges at the Union-Sun & Journal have done the tough job of choosing our Page 1 Valentine finalists, and now it’s time for our readers to choose their 2009 Page 1 Valentine.

Each day until Feb. 5, the newspaper will print a coupon with the names and photos of this year’s Page 1 Valentine finalists. Readers can vote on their favorite and return the coupons to the Union-Sun & Journal offices at 170 East Ave., either in person or by mail.

Readers can vote as many times as they wish, but only original coupons clipped from the paper will be accepted; no photocopies or e-mail votes will be allowed. Vote for only one girl and boy; entries received with more than one girl or boy checked will be discarded.

The entries will be counted and the winners will be announced on Valentine’s Day.

The contestants are:

Mallory McIntosh

Mallory is a senior at Lockport High School. She is a member of the National Honor Society, treasurer of the senior class and a member of the Forum staff. Mallory is also involved in Sports Promotion, Recycling Club and is an officer in the French Club.

In her spare time, Mallory is active in tennis, playing doubles the varsity tennis team, as well as serving as co-captain last season.

She also has been taking dancing at Sylvia’s School of Dance for nine years and her group will be performing at Disney World for the second time this spring. Mallory also works at Panera Bread.

She hopes to attend either Highpoint University in North Carolina or Niagara University, with a possible major of psychology or sociology. She is the daughter of Mary and John (Jay) McIntosh.

Allie Quast

Allie, 17, is a senior at Lockport High School. She has a 3.75, is a member of the National Honor Society and has been on the high honor roll since ninth grade. She has received both an academic and sports varsity “L.” She has been diving since ninth grade, has played varsity lacrosse and varsity basketball for the past two years. She is also a member of the LHS Band, and serves as band secretary.

Last summer, Allie worked at the Community Pool as a lifeguard and also taught swimming lessons. She has volunteered as a Salvation Army bell-ringer and collected canned goods, at a blood drive at her church, for the Challenger Baseball Team and currently volunteers in a kindergarten class at DeWitt Clinton Elementary School.

Allie plans to attend a four-year college, majoring in sports management.

Coleen Rausch

Coleen is a senior at Royalton-Hartland High School. An honor roll student who is very active in school, Coleen serves as secretary of the National Honor Society and the Student Council. She was also captain of the Girls’ Varsity Soccer Team this year and participates in the Captains’ Club. She is also a member of the varsity soccer, basketball and softball teams and has been awarded First Team All-League Honors in both soccer and softball.

Additionally Coleen plays oboe for the school band and is a member of the pit orchestra for the school musical. She has participated in Leo Club, a community service organization, for a number of years and currently serves as treasurer. She has also studied dance for 14 years.

Coleen plans to attend Daemen College in the fall to study elementary education and play soccer. She is the daughter of Rosemary and Bill Rausch.

Carrie Skellen

Carrie lives in Ransomville and is a junior at Wilson High School. She competes annually in Odyssey of the Mind and loves the arts. She plans on pursuing a degree in graphic design.

An accomplished fencer, Carrie has competed in foil, epee and sabre events. She now helps to train beginner fencers and hopes to qualify for the Empire State Games this summer.

A love of animals led Carrie to help found SPAR, a student group working to protect animal rights. Carrie has been a 4-H member for nine years and has shown horses, poultry, baked goods and flowers. She is also active in presentations, Horse Bowl, and hippology, qualifying for the state level several times.

Valerie Smith

Valerie is a senior at Starpoint High School where she is currently on the honor roll. Valerie is leader of Bible Study at school, where she is also in National Honor Society, French Club, year book club and the Senior High Wind Ensemble.

Valerie has studied tap, jazz, ballet, and lyrical at the Dyan Mulvey Dance Academy for the past 14 years, and has been an assistant teacher for the dance studio for the last four years. She has performed in seven musicals with Curtain Up Productions at the Lockport Palace Theatre. She is the secretary of the Girl Scouts of Western New York Older Girl Planning Board and has earned the Senior Girl Scout Community Service Award, Senior Program Aide Award, Bronze Award and Silver Award.

Valerie enjoys her job at Skateland and volunteering as a Sunday School teacher at The Chapel at CrossPoint, where she also attends the Twotwenty2 high school youth group. Valerie plans to major in psychology and minor in dance at SUNY Brockport in the fall of 2009. She is the daughter of Vicki and Keith Smith.

Kayla Snell

Kayla is a senior at Lockport High School, where she has been active in the drama department, performing in “Hello Dolly” and the One Act plays.

Kayla has danced at Sylvia’s School of Dance for the past 12 years. In April, she will be performing at Disney World in Orlando for the second time.

She has participated in Curtain Up productions at the Palace Theatre, including “West Side Story” and “Scrooge, the Musical.”

Upon graduation, Kayla plans to attend the University at Buffalo to pursue a career in pharmacy.

Amanda Stolzenburg

Amanda, 17, is a student at Lockport High School. She has always been on the honor roll, and is a member of the National Honor Society, the Spanish Honor Society, the yearbook staff, the Recycling Club and the Upstate New York Transplant Services. In addition, she teaches religion to fifth-graders at the Chapel. She also participates in the Kidney Walk in June every year in memory of her father.

Amanda works in the office for Dr. Deshmukh and Dr. Hughes on Davison Road three or four days a week. She also loves to dance and has attended Sylvia’s School of Dancing two to three times a week for the past 11 years, where she also teaches 5-year-olds. She intends to be a dental hygienist.

Amanda was nominated by her grandmother, Clara Pritchard, who said that Amanda would never enter herself in the contest, but thinks that she deserves a chance to be recognized for her involvement in this community. “I am the lucky grandmother of Amanda. I am so very proud of her. She is a loving, caring person. She was born with a smile on her face and still has that irresistible smile.”

Cole Barrish

Cole, 18, is a senior at Lockport High School. He is an active member of Ridgewood Bible Church, where he belongs to several groups there that he actively participates in every week. He is also a member of Distributive Education Clubs of America at LHS, is an avid Bills fan and loves to attend games there and at the University at Buffalo. He has been accepted at Niagara County Community College, where he will enter the audio recording program in the fall.

Cole was nominated by his mother, Paula, who said her son has a “kindness and graciousness that is hard to find in anyone, especially an 18-year-old-young man. He truly does not have a mean bone in his body. He is polite almost to a fault and is sincere in whatever he takes on. One of his teachers once told me that he always seems to befriend the ‘new kid’ or the one who is ‘different from others’ and makes lifelong friendships along the way. I suppose that comes from having a profoundly autistic brother and having to sacrifice many things to help out at home. His maturity and compassion stem from that experience alone.”

Patrick Harrington

Patrick is a senior at Royalton-Hartland High School. He resides in Gasport with his parents, Roy and Heidi, his sister, Haley, and brother Tyler.

In school, Patrick is a member of the National Honor Society and is involved with chorus and the jazz band. He devotes most of his time to his pride and joy, his guitar, which he started playing at the age of 15. He began his lessons at Redhouse Music in Newfane, where he now teaches others. Patrick is also studying blues and jazz guitar at the Lockport Music Center and is in the band “Soul Kitchen,” which plays at nightclubs in the area.

He also enjoys spending time with his family and friends, traveling, and reading biographies about his greatest guitar inspirations.

Patrick plans to attend Niagara County Community College in the fall to further his musical studies and then continue on to a music school.

In 1997, Patrick’s grandmother entered his cousin, Charlie Henderson, in this contest and he won. She talked of entering Patrick when he became a senior, but she passed way unexpectedly in April. This year, Charlie and his family entered Patrick in the Page One Valentine contest in memory of their grandma.

Stephen Kojsza

Stephen is a senior at Lockport High School. He is currently working toward getting his Eagle Scout rank and plays several sports for the high school, such as volleyball and swimming. He was named the Union-Sun & Journal player of the year for volleyball and received NFL 1st team all star honors. He also has been the captain the past two years, and is a four-year starter.

Stephen has also been involved in Mindworks, which puts on the school’s talent show. This past year, he was inducted into the National Honor Society and the Spanish Honor Society.

Over the summer, he went to Boys State, where he learned about the government and how young adults can be involved with their local government. He was selected by the American Legion out of a group of five boys.

As a Boy Scout, Stephen went to Philmont Scout Ranch. There, his patrol traveled about 50 miles over the New Mexico terrain.

He has also been volunteering with St. John’s Church as an altar server and a church schoolteacher. As a side job, Stephen mows lawns for a couple that owns apartments in Lockport.

After graduation, he is going to SUNY Cortland, where he plans on majoring in physical education. After graduation, he would like to come back home and become a physical education teacher at Lockport High School.

John ‘Jed’ McIntosh

Jed is a senior at Lockport High School. He is a member of National Honor Society and is co-captain of the Lockport Federation Hockey team. He has been playing hockey for 10 years, and has been on a travel team for seven years, recently playing for the Buffalo Stars Junior team. Jed was a Union-Sun & Journal carrier for five years and currently works at McIntosh and McIntosh. In his spare time, he loves playing and watching sports and watching movies.

Jed plans to attend University at Buffalo, Niagara University or Cortland, majoring in pre-law. He is the son of Mary and John “Jay” McIntosh.

Nate Schneider

Nate is a freshman at Lockport High School. A high honor roll student, he is in all possible honor classes this year, hoping to get a scholarship to go to a good college and play men’s volleyball. Since seventh grade, he has been on Lockport’s JV volleyball team and was moved up to varsity at the end of last season. He played club volleyball at Sweet Home for the past four years and I hope to win some tournaments this year as our team captain.

Nate also plays lots of sports, including baseball, hockey and basketball. He also played baseball at Lockport Little League and has been on numerous All-Star teams as a pitcher and infielder, but can play any position. He used to play indoor roller hockey for many years in Olcott as a forward, but had to give that up due to club volleyball.

Nate has also played piano since he was 6 years old, and has performed a few times at local nursing homes on Christmas. Right now, he is in the Jazz Ensemble at Lockport High, on the keyboard. He recently made Junior All County Jazz Band for the one piano spot open.

In addition, Nate delivers newspapers for the Union-Sun & Journal and suggests that more people get the paper, even if they don’t know everything about Lockport.

He attends Faith Tabernacle Church on Beattie Avenue.

Joseph VanSchoonhoven

Joey is a senior at Lockport High School, where he is a high honor student. He is a respectful young man who wants to pursue a career in engineering.

Joey is a member of the Ski Club, DECA-all state and the foreign exchange club.

In his spare time, he enjoys skiing and playing drums.

John Vincent

John is a junior at Wilson Central School. He spends a lot of his time doing volunteer work, including going from his own football practice to be an assistant coach with the Newfane Youth Football League for the past three years. He has volunteered at the Wilson Fireman’s fish fry for the past six years, and volunteers at the Wilson Youth Baseball organization, working on fields, umpiring or doing whatever is needed to be done since he was 12. He also volunteers at the Olcott Methodist Church, cooking chicken for the barbecue, which his great-grandparents started 50 years ago.

John is the quarterback and a captain for the Wilson Varsity Lakemen and he was also nominated for the Connolly Cup Award this season. He is a starter for the varsity basketball team, and he recently he made the All Tournament Team at the Depew holiday tournament, and in the spring he runs for the track team.

John is a member of the Wilson high school band, where he plays the drums. He also sings in the chorus, and he is going to be in the school play “Pirates of Penzance” in the spring. John is a scholar athlete on the honor roll and plans on going to college to be an engineer.

John loves hanging out with friends, going outside to hang out with his younger brothers and sister, canoeing, biking, fishing or just throwing the ball around. He is the son of JoJo and Russ Vincent.