VFW recognizes patriotic essay contest winners

ROCKINGHAM — Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 4203 honored two students and a teacher for their annual essay and teacher awards ceremony Thursday evening.

Major (Ret) Darryl Kelly, Kingston Gil and Lillian Hill were awarded the Teacher of the Year, Patriot’s Pen and Voice of Democracy award respectively.

“We want to give you a big special thanks for all you do for our post,” Robin Roberts, President of the VFW Auxiliary, said to Kelly. “From the parade to the memorial services — Anything we need. We’re so proud of you and honored to give you this award.”

For the Patriot’s Pen and Voice of Democracy awards, students from around the county submitted essays that were reviewed by the VFW.

They were hard to pick,” shared Post Commander Eddie Dean. “We had them lined up and they were hard to pick.”

Kingston Gil of Cordova Middle School received the Patriot’s Pen Award. Roberts thanked him for participating and that it was so good to see young people learning about American history and patriotism.

The theme for all of the Voice of Democracy essay applicants was “What are the greatest attributes of our democracy?”

Lillian, a ninth-grader at Richmond Early College, said she didn’t know what to write about initially, but gathered some ideas from her father, Sean McDonald, during an annual Halloween camping trip to a local pond.

“I was telling him about what I had to write about,” she said. “Since he’s a veteran, I was like ‘What do you think I should write about?’ Two things he said were the Constitution and the people it protects.”

Lillian read her award-winning essay to everyone in attendance.

“In order to have a stable union, there must be a well-built foundation,” Lillian began. “The Constitution is the foundation to our democracy as it provides power to the government, the states and the people.”

She outlined how the Bill of Rights and its 27 amendments protect US citizens.

“Another essential quality to which our democracy is built upon is the people,” Hill read. “Americans continue to embrace Democratic values and fundamental liberties instead of fear and oppression…Our democracy calls for diversity as we are different yet similar. The contrast and opinions and points of views…the power that drives our ability to be varied is freedom.”

Lillian concluded by stating that the Constitution, the power of the military and the citizens are the “gems” of our democracy. Her grandfather, Mike Dick, said he was a ‘proud papa’ following the reading of her essay.

Major Kelly stated that the VFW and VFW Auxiliary Service serve a very-much needed purpose in the community, not just for veterans, but for the community as a whole.

“This award doesn’t just represent me as an individual, it represents our JROTC program as a whole.,” Kelly said. “[The other JROTC teachers] are a big part of everything that we do as well as all of the teachers at Richmond Senior.”

There are currently 171 students who are a part of JROTC at Richmond Senior.

Both Kingston and Lillian’s essays will now compete at the district-level.

“We’re blessed to have teachers, parents and the county that helps us to teach democracy, patriotism and our military,” Roberts said at the conclusion of the event.

CORRECTION: This article has been updated with corrected names.