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has gone down, but I hope that some people will step up and participate. I feel like winning is not everything with this – the experience is what’s important.”

Each year the Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW) Ladies Auxiliary hosts the Voice of Democracy competition during which high school students write an essay regarding a patriotic topic, record the essay as a speech, and submit it to anonymous judges who determine winners at the local, district, state, and national levels. At the event, VFW Ladies Auxiliary Youth Scholarship Chairwoman Sandra Harris announced that Mc-Daniel had not only won at the local level of the competition, but also the district level, meaning that she will now move on to the state competition.

When asked what she wrote about, McDaniel said she focused on the most important parts of democracy. “In my essay, I mainly focused on the rights that we have that other countries do not, and how important that is to recognize,” she explained.

Along with McDaniel, three other students were recognized for their excellence in the competition, as Jake Adams took home 2nd place and Anna Nalley earned the 3rd place spot.

Harris told those who had assembled for the ceremony, “When I was young, up until I was in my 40s, I was intimidated by public speaking. I got one F that I could remember in high school, and it was in speech class because I transferred from Lyons High School to a school in Jacksonville. So, I went from being a 10th grade middle classman to a lower classman, and I was intimidated. I could not make myself get up and speak. So, this is not an easy competition, but it is an important skill to learn,” Harris told the crowd. During the awards ceremony, Harris also presented awards for both the local Patriot’s Pen middle school writing competition and the VFW Ladies Auxiliary Teacher of the Year.

The Patriot’s Pen competition is very similar to the Voice of Democracy competition, except without the oral add-on of reading essays. The middle school participants also work to discuss patriotic topics in their writing. This year’s competition had around 60 participants, which truly made the event extremely competitive.

Vidalia Heritage Academy 6th grader Bonnie Davis took home the 1st place prize in the Patriot’s Pen competition. “She competed with 50 to 60 others from the 6th to 8th grade, and still came out on top – that’s truly impressive,” Harris commented.

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Brantley Black, whom Harris said was titled the “outstanding young spokesperson of the future” by the judges, who were impressed with his composition.

The 3rd place award was given to Noah Proenza and Georgia Braddy, who completely tied throughout the judging process. “The way the scoring is done – for two students to come up with the exact same score – is an anomaly. It’s incredible and extremely rare,” Harris added.

Both the Voice of Democracy and Patriot’s Pen top three finishers were each given two scholarships – one from the Ladies Auxiliary and one from the local VFW.

Robert Toombs Christian Academy Teacher Lisa Parker was named the 2023-2024 VFW and Ladies Auxiliary Teacher of the Year for the local area during the ceremony. Harris spoke on the honor, as she explained that the family members, students, and colleagues of teachers could nominate individuals for the award, and the candidate most deserving of the award was decided by judges who reviewed the nominations.

“I always hope to get more and more of the Teacher of the Year nominees, but I know why we don’t – those teachers are busy, especially in the younger grades. It takes a strong person to be a teacher, and I respect that greatly,” Harris added. “This is a teacher that in some way, has always been a teacher since she has been an adult. She does volunteer work, and she does a lot of administrative things that are volunteer work that are not always compensated through her salary. She is very active in our community, and we are happy to recognize her.”

Parker extended her gratitude to Harris for the recognition, stating it was honor to receive such an award.