Daily Journal file photo
Jude Howard reads his patriotic essay at the VFW.
TROY — A local student will be representing American Legion Post 147 in the American Legion Oritician Contest next weekend.
Jude Howard, of Rockingham, received the VFW Post 4203’s Voice of Democracy award for his essay on patriotism last week. In the upcoming contest, he will give a freeform (meaning without notes to reference) speech that will be between 8-10 minutes long on the topic of the Constitution, which he open to Howard’s interpretation. He will also not have a microphone or a podium, according to Carlton Hawkins of Post 147.
The first round of the contest will be held at 1 p.m. on Saturday, Jan. 29, 2022 at Montgomery Community College, 1011 Page St. in troy. Doors open at noon.
The winner, out of the 3 or 4 contestants, will move on to compete in the divisional round in Concord.
Howard’s winning essay in the VFW essay contest — which gave contestants the prompt: “America, Where Do We Go From Here?” — focused on the U.S. response to the pandemic.
“We’ve had challenging times before, and have emerged even stronger,” Jude said. “No American leader has ever been at a crossroad and said, ‘Let’s go back.’ They’ve always said, ‘Let’s move forward.’”