Camas students fare well at essay contest

Two Camas students will move on in the Veterans of Foreign Wars Patriot’s Pen essay contest.

Hannah Morris, a home-schooled sixth-grader and Justine Pendergraft, a Skyridge Middle School seventh-grader, were recently honored for their winning essays, “What Freedom Means to Me.”

Both will move on to the state level after receiving first-place awards in a ceremony conducted in Camas.

Each year more than 125,000 students in grades six to eight enter the VFW’s Patriot’s Pen youth essay contest.

The first-place winner from each state competes for national awards totaling $50,000, with each first-place state winner receiving a minimum of $500 at the national level.

The national first-place winner wins $5,000 and an all-expense-paid trip to Washington, D.C., in March.

The essay contest encourages young minds to examine America’s history, along with their own experiences in modern American society, by drafting a 300- to 400-word essay, expressing their views based on a patriotic theme chosen by the VFW commander-in-chief.