Local students enter Elks Americanism essay contest
BY BILL KELLY
Dalhart Texan
The National Elks Association holds an Americanism essay contest for students in fifth grade-eighth grade, with each grade being considered a different division. Four students from the Dalhart area submitted essays in the contest, and recently received an award from the Dalhart Elks Lodge, #2390.
The title of the essay that the students had to write was “What does service to America mean to me?” The essay was required to be no more than 300 words. According to Lynn Harris, the chairman of the Americanism committee at the Dalhart Elks Lodge, students in Dalhart, Texline, Stratford, Hartley and Channing were eligible to submit essays to that lodge. (Students in other towns and cities would submit essays to whichever Elks Lodge was closest to them.)
Two students from St. Anthony of Padua Catholic School submitted essays. These students were Anna Pollard, who was in fifth grade, and Emily Walker, who was in sixth grade. Greyson Brown, a fifth grade student at Dalhart Intermediate, also submitted as essay, as did Kenia Cardona, a seventh grade student at Hartley Junior High. There were no essays submitted by anyone from any of the other schools in the area this year.
Each of the four students received an award from the Dalhart Elks Lodge for submitting an essay. They were given a book of the U.S. Constitution with the Bill of Rights. It includes explanations of the different rights and how they were placed in the Constitution. Each of the students received this book during the awards ceremony that was held at that particular school at the end of the school year.
The essays are sent to the district level (if there are more than three in a division/ grade level, the top three are sent from each division), and the top three in each division or grade level from district are then sent to the state level. The top three in each division at the state level are then sent on to the national level. At the national level, the writer of the first place essay in each division receives $1,000, the writer of the second place essay receives $500, and the writer of the third place essay receives $250. There may also be awards at the district and state level, although that varies from one district to another and one state to another.
As of now, it is unknown if any of the essays that were written by the local students will move on to higher levels.
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