| VFW
award winners named
As in years past, the Veterans of Foreign Wars Voice of Democracy and Patriot's Pen inspired tough competition. The Voice of Democracy (grades 9-12) speech award theme this year is, "My Vision for America," and the top three spots belong to Prairie Junior/Senior high school students. Faith Uhlenkott, a junior and daughter of Ryan and Heather Uhlenkott won first place honors. Senior, Marisa Lustig, Bob and April Lustig's daughter, brought in a strong second place, finishing just 1.5 percentage points behind Uhlenkott. Molly Schwartz rounded out the top three. She is a sophomore, daughter of Jared and Annmarie Schwartz, and no stranger to the VFW awards program, placing in the top three in previous years. Continuing the tough competition, the Patriot's Pen (grades 6-8) essay award theme is, "What Freedom Means to Me." As luck would have it, this is the third consecutive year that sixth grade students captured the top three spots. Prairie student Steven Rambo, son of Jason and Megan Rambo, grabbed first place honors. He edged out Summit Academy's Danielle Sonnen, daughter of Norm and Julie Sonnen, by a mere 7 tenths of a percentage point. Sonnen's impressive 87% cumulative score earned her the second place bragging rights. The Patriot's pen was a tight race, and not to be outdone, Prairie student Delanie Lockett, daughter of Stan and Cassi Lockett, posted a high 84.3%, locking in the third place finish. Just 3.4% separate first from third in the hotly contested essay award competition. Faith Uhlenkott's first place speech and Steven Rambo's winning essay advance to the District II level where they compete against the first place finisher from eight other posts. Please join with me to congratulate these students and wish them good luck at district! Likewise, I want to thank all the other students from Prairie, Summit, and home school, who participated in the VFW student awards program. Special thanks go to our judges, Loreen Nightingale, Marilyn Lerandeau, and Shelli Schumacher. They had the daunting task of assessing the speeches and essays against established criteria and at times the tension in the air was thick enough to cut with a knife. This year's group of students rose to the occasion and they are all excellent in their own right. The judges made the difficult selection and put our best foot forward going into district. Thank you to the Cottonwood Community Library, and Loreen Nightingale, for providing the perfect venue for judging these awards. Conducting the judging, surrounded by great literary works made me wonder, and hope, that someday one of our award participants will have their published works proudly displayed in this library. Joe Riener, Commander VFW Post 4902 
Shelli Schumacher, Laurine Nightingale and Marilyn Lerandeau read through the Patriots Pen essay entries at the Library on Monday. Earlier in the morning they judged the Voice of Democracy entries. |
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