Voice of Democracy Contest

Thimons takes first place in the VFW Voice of Democracy Contest

Senior Karlee Thimons received a letter and a check for $500 from VFW Post 92 letting her know that her audio essay for the Annual Voice of Democracy Contest took First Place at the local level. She is moving on to compete at the county level.  Each win brings her one step closer to the National competition where should could win up to up to $35,000.  Her local win will be honored at a dinner in the spring at the local post.

Mrs. Yank encourages students every year to enter the contest. She said she was not only excited we had someone who submitted an entry but who actually won. "It is a very nice cash prize, and it is nice to see someone from Burrell win the scholarship," Yank said.

As part of the "Charting the Course" journey, students were asked to respond to the prompt for this year's "Voice of Democracy" contest sponsored by the VFW. 

This year's prompt: "What are the greatest attributes of our Democracy?"

They chose three attributes of democracy and discussed why they considered them to be the greatest in regards to their own personal view of "our" democracy.  Although students were not required to record their speech, they needed to write as if they were giving a 3-5 minute speech.

Thimons commented about how she chose what to write about, "I wanted to write about something that I valued and then took the idea of imperfection and using it as a force of improvement which I thought was a unique angle to the prompt."

Thimons decided she would like to take the next step of actually submitting her speech to the contest. "I decided to record it in order to bring life into my essay. I really liked how the idea turned out, and I felt like it really came from my heart and values," said Thimons.

It took a lot of work to get the essay ready for recording. Thimons had to tweak the essay to make sure it complied with the prompt from the VFW not just the course assignment. Then, she had to make it flow as a spoken rather than written speech. She spent time practicing and also recording. Thimons' two Senior Seminar teachers (Mrs. Pagnotta and Mrs. Shaffer) also helped with the fine tuning of the essay and getting her ready to record the audio. Mr. Rossi also took a look prior to recording, and he said, "What a fantastic job!"

Mrs. Shaffer commented, "I was happy that my 'tiny microphone' provided a clear and crisp recording, so Karlee's message was well heard, and it sounded professionally recorded."

We wish Karlee luck as she moves to the next level of competition. Thanks for representing Burrell at such a well-known and prestigious contest.