Meet the 2025 Esteemed Judges Panel

Margaret Banks is a lifelong poetry lover and writer from North Carolina. Her poetry has placed in the Virginia Poetry Society annual contests, including publication in the 2023 anthology. She graduated with Honors in English and Creative Writing at UNC Chapel Hill. She has worked as a technical writer, technical editor, and afterschool teacher, and currently works in nonprofit science education. She loves astronomy, trees, and science fiction.

Holly Karapetkova is Poet Laureate Emerita of Arlington County and the recipient of a 2022 Academy of American Poets Laureate Fellowship. She is the author of two books of poetry, Words We Might One Day Say, winner of the 2010 Washington Writers’ Publishing House Poetry Award, and Towline, winner of the 2016 Vern Rutsala Poetry Contest from Cloudbank Books. Her third book, Dear Empire, was recently selected as co-winner of the 2024 Barry Spacks Poetry Prize and is forthcoming from Gunpowder Press. She is also the author of over 20 books for children. She serves on the board of Washington Writers’ Publishing House, the oldest continually operating nonprofit cooperative press in the United States, and is an editor at Mid-Atlantic Review. She holds an MFA in Creative Writing and a PhD in English and Comparative Literature and teaches at Marymount University in Arlington, VA.

Delegate Kannan Srinivasan represents House District 26 and is the first Indian American immigrant to serve in the Virginia House of Delegates. He moved to Virginia in 1992 to pursue a master’s in accounting at Old Dominion University after earning chartered accountancy certification in India.

Loudoun County has been home to him and his wife, Jayashree, for more than 25 years. Prior to his election to the General Assembly, he was a finance and business analytics professional for more than thirty years, at NEW/Asurion and recently with the Chef Jose Andres Restaurant group. He served on the Virginia State Medicaid Board for seven years, most recently as its Chair, and currently serves on the boards of the George Washington University Heart & Vascular Institute and the Loudoun Free Clinic. 

As Delegate, he prioritizes innovative solutions to achieve excellence in education, government transparency, & comprehensive healthcare reform. He is appointed to the Health & Human Services and Privileges & Elections Committees, in addition to the Speaker’s Select Committee on Advancing Rural Health. He also serves on several Boards & Commissions, including the Broadband Advisory Council, Small Business Commission, & Manufacturing Development Commission.

Supervisor Laura A. TeKrony was elected to represent the Little River District on the Board of Supervisors in November 2023. 

She serves on the Board of Supervisors' Joint Board and School Board Committee and the Transportation and Land Use Committee. She is one of Loudoun's representatives on the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments' (COG) Board of Directors and serves on COG's Chesapeake Bay and Water Resources Policy Committee and the Food and Agriculture Regional Member Policy Committee. She is also one of Loudoun's representatives on the Coalition of Loudoun Towns.

Prior to her election, Supervisor TeKrony was a legislative aide to Board of Supervisors Chair Phyllis Randall, a position which afforded her the ability to acquire extensive knowledge about land use and other complex issues affecting Loudoun County residents and businesses.

During her time as a legislative aide, she wrote several Board Member Initiatives, including one that resulted in the creation of the Loudoun County Environmental Commission; a collaboration with then-Blue Ridge District Supervisor Buffington's office to preserve prime agricultural soils in cluster subdivisions; and the Source Water Protection Board Member Initiative that establishes a permanent 500-foot protection buffer along our scenic rivers, reservoirs and watersheds. She also advocated for the St Louis community to find an alternative solution for the MOJAX development and a small area plan for the village, worked with the Loudoun Soil and Water Conservation District to provide funding for engineering studies to support Agricultural Best Management Practices and Tree Replenishing Cost Share Programs in the floodplain and advocated for the Preservation Equity Initiative to document and preserve the lives, buildings, and landscapes of Loudoun’s African American communities.

Supervisor TeKrony has demonstrated her belief in the value of public service through her volunteer work, including being involved with the parent-teacher associations at her children’s schools, serving on the Aldie Heritage Association Board of Directors and being appointed to serve on two Loudoun County advisory boards – the Parks, Recreation and Open Space Board and the Heritage Commission.

Supervisor TeKrony grew up on a farm in Hopewell, New Jersey. She earned a bachelor’s degree in biology from Bucknell University and a master’s degree in marketing from Fordham University. She lives in Aldie, where she and her husband have raised their three daughters.