Americanism Essay Contest Winners
For the past few school years our Lodge has participated in the Grand Lodge Americanism Essay contest.
Our Committee chairman, Jim McFadyen, brought the contest to three middle schools in Indian River County at the beginning of the 2017-2018 school year.
In February 2018, six local students were awarded gift certificates and American flags by our Lodge for their winning entries on the topic “Why Our Veterans are America’s Heroes.” They were the best essays among over 200 entries from the Indian River County School District.
Pictured with the winners are then Exalted Ruler Paul Diaz, PER, left and James McFadyen, Americanism Committee Chairman.
The winning entries were submitted to the District and State levels for judging.
One of our six finalists, a student from Oslo Middle School won first place in the Florida State Elks Association competition for 5th and 6th graders.
Below is the picture included in a press release dated May 9, 2018. From left to right are: Teacher Susan Kehoe, winning student, Principal Beth Hofer, and Jim Rannazzisi, Exalted Ruler at the time.
Our State Americanism Essay Contest winner in the 5th and 6th grade Division read her essay at the Florida State Elks Convention on Memorial Day Weekend in Orlando. Her picture and essay appeared in the Convention Program representing our Lodge. Our thanks to our Americanism Committee Chairman, Jim McFadyen, for organizing the essay contest and our team of evaluators (Melody Gabriel, John Beckert, Jean Beckert, Flo Synenko, Laura McFadyen and Jim Rannazzisi) for reading and scoring 100 essays each.
We presented our 2018-19 Americanism Essay Contest awards at the March 5, 2019 Lodge meeting. We received 88 entries from students in grades 5 through 8. The essays on the topic “What Makes You Proud of America?” were evaluated by Jean Beckert, John Beckert, Laurie McFadyen, Melody Gabriel, Kathi Miller and Flo Synenko. The latter three were in attendance at the ceremony.
Also attending from the School District of Indian River County were:
- Jon Teske, Asst Superintendent
- Kathy Pierandozzi, Executive Director of Secondary Education
- Casandra Flores, Principal-Rosewood Magnet Elementary School
- Ann Bieber, Principal-Storm Grove Elementary School
- Rose Brickles-Teacher-Sebastian Elementary School
- Whitney Green, Teacher-Storm Grove Elementary School
- Lorrie Scott, Librarian-Sebastian Elementary School
The winners of the Southeast Central District competition. were entered into the Florida State Elks Association contest. One of our winners won 2nd place in the State competition.
The first place winners received a $75 gift card. The second place and third place winners received $50 and $25 gift cards respectively.
The School District of Indian River County has an article on the awards in The Connection, their online newsletter.
Our thanks to Jim McFadyen, Americanism Committee Chairman, for organizing this effort and to the evaluation team for all their hard work.
Pictured with the winners are: Jim Rannazzisi-ER, and Jim McFadyen.
We conducted another Americanism Essay contest for the 2019-2020 school year and, once again we had a First Place winner. At Saturday’s Awards Luncheon at the convention in Orlando in May our Lodge competition winner who was the State Americanism Essay Contest winner in the 7th and 8th Grade Category, read his essay to the convention attendees. He is a student at Storm Grove Middle School and represented our Lodge in the State Americanism Essay competition. Previously, He received a check for $1,500 from the Florida State Elks Association for his achievement. After the Awards Luncheon Exalted Ruler Rich Miller presented Andrew with a $250 gift from our Lodge for expenses for his family to accompany him at the convention.
Congratulations to two local students being awarded 2nd Place at the State level in the 2021 Elks nation-wide Americanism Essay Contest – “How can Patriotism be Demonstrated?” Pictured with the students left to right are Paul Diaz; Rich Miller; and Jim McFadyen, Americanism Committee Chairman; and Darlene Short, Exalted Ruler.
