Three sixth graders win VFW essay contest

HOPE — Three Hope Elementary sixth graders have earned honors — and a little bit of money — in the Veteran of Foreign Wars’ annual Patriot Pen essay contest.

Conducted nationwide, the VFW-sponsored youth essay competition is an opportunity for students in sixth, seventh and eighth grade to write essays expressing their views on an annual patriotic theme. More than 165,400 students enter the Patriot Pen contest each year for a chance to win their share of $1.4 million in state and national awards.

First-place winners receive a minimum of $500 at the national level, said VFW officials. The national first place winner wins $5,000. This year’s essay prompt was “How Can I Be a Good American.”

“Teachers were only allowed to coach students through the contest rules,” said Jennifer Majors, a teacher at Hope Elementary. “I couldn’t help them in any way, shape or form.”

Essays were then sent to a committee of judges who graded the essays on content and grammar in order to pick a winner. Clark Fork VFW Commander Tel Thompson was on the committee and presented the awards at Hope Elementary on Dec. 9.

In third place was Azelynn Petersen, who won $50. Elyssa Rynor came in second and won $75. Ezekiel Green came in first place, winning $100.

Majors asked the students what they planned to spend their prize money on. Azelynn said she is going to buy her mom and dad Christmas presents with her money.

Zeke [Ezekiel] said he’s going to use the money to buy his friends some gifts and a new battery for his phone. Elyssa said she’s going to use the money to buy Christmas presents for family and friends.

Since Ezekiel came in first for the Clark Fork VFW competition he was submitted to the district level, which covers the Idaho panhandle. His essay went up against 15 other first place competitors. Ezekiel came in third for all of District 1 and received another $50.

The Clark Fork VFW Post contestants Patriot Pen competition is open to students from Hope Elementary and Clark Fork Jr. High School. This year, the contest attracted only nine essay submissions — all of which were from Jennifer Majors’ sixth-grade class.

“Ezekiel was the clear front runner for all of us [judges]. He was by far above all the others,” said Thompson.

Second and third place were close, said Thompson. He said since the checks are written out to the winners they get to spend it on whatever they want.

Majors said that the essay had a strict 300- to 400-word limit. The tricky part of the sixth graders was to write within the word count and still get all their thoughts down. The lack of teacher involvement was very different from what they were used to.

“Since they did not receive feedback like they normally would they had to be completely independent. So I was really impressed,” said Majors.

“Zeke [Ezekiel] wrote on American inventions, which is something that no one else touched on,” she added.

With the essay prompt being personal all students wrote very different essays, she said. She said the three students who won were new to Hope Elementary this year, but not new to the district.

Not all sixth graders at Hope Elementary entered the contest. Majors said that many students joined in on the contests but dropped off before the deadline.

“And for these three students who are new to Hope Elementary this year to trust the process with me, I felt that was a really neat thing to have from them,” she said.

Majors said that this was the first time Ezekiel had ever entered a writing contest.

“But what a discovery for him to find out about himself that he's a writer,” said Majors.

She went on to say that competitions like this make students realize that they can get paid to write. It brings the lessons she teaches the students into the world outside of school.

“When you play a sport and you get acknowledged, you realize that maybe you’re an athlete,” said Majors. “So this contest could be a really big deal for the kids who entered and won something. It could be like life changing by realizing something about themselves as writers that they would have never known.”

Thompson gave the award to the three winners in front of the fourth and fifth graders in hopes that they will enter the essay contest in upcoming years. He said the VFW also had a competition at the high school level, although that is still a ways off to an elementary student.

Students can enter the essay contest from sixth grade through eighth to the Patriot Pen contest. High school students can enter the Voice of Democracy contest. Homeschool students can enter as well.

Thompson said that every VFW is supposed to participate in the contest. For more information go VFW scholarships go to www.vfw.org/community/youth-and-education/youth-scholarships