Afton’s Veterans of Foreign Wars Post #4797 is encouraging local youth in kindergarten through grade 12 to consider entering three contests sponsored by the VFW Auxiliary with entry deadlines this Saturday, March 31. Each contest offers youth an opportunity to qualify for national competition and scholarship. High school students could potentially receive five-figure scholarship awards for their entries.
The three contests involve art and music. “The Young American Creative Art Contest” invites high school students to submit 3-D arts projects such as wood, metal, sculpture or fiber projects that have a patriotic theme.
“Get Excited for the Red, White and Blue” is a vocal contest for students K-12, inviting them to submit a recording of them singing their personal interpretation of The National Anthem. Students here are encouraged to submit something that shows creativity, musicality in a message of music paying tribute to “our great nation.”
“Illustrate America” is open to students K-12. This contest invites entries of 2-dimensional art pieces of any material that have a patriotic theme.
Each program offers advancement from state to national levels of competition, with national finalists and winners potentially earning five-figure scholarship awards.
Afton’s Post Commander, Jerry Lainhart, shared his feelings in an interview with SVI Media this weekend about the value of this competition for students in LCSD No. 2 as he spoke of a high school welding student who created a piece of metal that he felt was very worthy of a national award, but the piece was not submitted to the competition. He saw a piece produced in the “welding shop last year that was just really spectacular and if we had that as our entrant last year, I have no doubt she would have won Nationals with it, because it was that good!”
This “really is an opportunity to kind of change your life if that’s the kind of thing you like to do,” said Lainhart. “It’s definitely worth the effort to participate.” He recalled a student who participated a few years ago from the Valley who placed in the top five nationally, “and still ended up with five figures worth of scholarships by the time it was all totaled. It was just an art project that she was doing as part of her art class. This is something that you can do at school and get a grade for.”
Elementary and middle school students are in “a little smaller prize pool,” but they’re still able to place nationally and take home a cash scholarship. “Our objective is to reach many students and make them aware of the opportunities to participate.”
For rules, entry applications and additional details, visit https://vfwauxiliary.org/ and click on the Scholarships and Contests tab. To enter, contact Mindi Roberts De Niz at 307-880-7421.
