Rachel Feist of Jenks High School won a $1,000 college scholarship for writing the best essay from Oklahoma in this year’s National Peace Essay Contest, sponsored by the United States Institute of Peace (USIP). Feist will be invited to join other state winners on an all-expenses-paid trip to Washington, DC to participate in a weeklong education program focusing on international conflict resolution, and compete for national scholarship awards up to $10,000.
This is the 20th year that USIP has sponsored the National Peace Essay Contest, which addresses a different issue of war and peace selected by the Institute’s Board of Directors each year.
Approximately 4,000 students from around the US, including US territories and American students living abroad, researched and wrote essays on the topic of Youth and Violent Conflicts. Feist’s essay, “Let Them Be Children,” was coordinated by Eric Fox.
“Every year, my colleagues and I are deeply impressed by the level of effort and dedication that high school students display in their essays about complex international issues,” USIP President Dr. Richard H. Solomon says. “Our hope is that today’s essay contest winners will be tomorrow’s peace builders.”
Essays are judged by an independent panel of educators on the content of the student’s ideas, the analysis of researched facts and opinions and the clarity and organization of their expression. State winners are invited to Washington, DC from June 17-22 At a banquet at the end of the week, the national, first-, second- and third-place contest winners will be announced, each of whom will earn scholarship prizes of $10,000, $5,000 and $2,500, respectively.
For more information on USIP, visit www.usip.org.
