On Friday, Christina Rybicki (12) won the Voice of Democracy award, presented to her by the VFW.  The topic this year was “Is There Pride in Our Military?”

“[My essay and speech] was for my grandpa.  He passed in January, and we went through his stuff; we found his medals.  He never really talked about them.  I wrote it for him,” Rybicki said.

Rybicki found out about the contest through Mr. Joe Bafia, social studies, and entered for the chance to earn money toward her college tuition.  

“Mr. Bafia encouraged me to enter.  I also wanted to get scholarships so [that] the tuition wouldn’t be such a financial burden,” Rybicki said.

Rybicki had to write an essay and also make an audio recording of it for submission.  She wrote about how our military has a lot of pride.  The VFW highly encourages high school students to submit an essay into the contest.  Very few students at LC entered this year, and the VFW hopes for more next year.

“I thought other people would enter and have a better chance than me,” Rybicki said.

The VFW Voice of Democracy contest is annual, and the topic changes every year.  The prize money starts at $75 for a school-wide competition and can increase up to $30,000 at the highest level of the contest
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