Patriots Pen

As one of their Social Studies assignments, Heather's class was asked to write an essay for the Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW) Patriots Pen Essay Contest.  Apparently, the VFW holds an annual writing contest for students in grades 6-8.  Each year they choose a different topic and students are encouraged to write an original essay of 400 words or less. 

The VFW has numerous districts within each state.  Essays are submitted to a specific district.  The district selects the essays they think are best (finalists) and then narrow it down to one winner.  The district winners go to the state competition.  The state winners go to the national competition.  Heather's teacher submitted her essay to a local district and Heather was selected as a finalist for the district.  (Someone else in her class won for the district.)

The topic this year was "Does Patriotism Still Matter?"  I haven't seen a copy of Heather's essay yet (the school computers were down today), but she received a framed award certificate.  How cool is that?