Templeton High's Bianca Nunez wins this year's DAR Good Citizen Award and Kate Nicholson wins American History Award. Both were featured in a recent edition of the Paso Robles Press. Learn more below from an excerpted article in the Atascadero News and Paso Robles Press written by Camille DeVaul
NORTH COUNTY — The El Paso de Robles Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution (NSDAR) has announced the winners of the Good Citizen, American History and the Patriots of the American Revolution essay contests for 2023.
Good Citizen
The Good Citizen award is open to all accredited North County high school students. Schools are asked to nominate one student who exemplifies a Good Citizen’s qualities. Each entry must submit their high school activities, including how they serve the community, their future plans, extracurricular activities, and how they have exhibited the Good Citizen qualities of dependability, service, leadership, and patriotism. They must also submit their grade transcripts and two letters of recommendation. Once a student is chosen, they are asked to write a timed and proctored essay.
A panel of three community members who do not belong to NSDAR review all entries and select a winner. All panel members have backgrounds as teachers, newspaper writers, and public service.
Three students entered the competition this year:
Tiffani Santoro, Paso Robles High School, daughter of Tim and Fatima Santoro
Samantha Legorreta, Shandon High School, daughter of Hilda Guzman
Bianca Nunez, Templeton High School, daughter of Mario Nunez and Bianca Cecila and Luis Alberto Garcia.
Winning this year’s Good Citizen award was Nunez of Templeton.
Patriots of the American Revolution
This year’s winner of the Patriots of the American Revolution was Templeton High School student Katherine Nicholson. She also won the District VII contest. Photo courtesy of NSDAR
The Patriots of the American Revolution essay contest is open to students in the ninth through 12th grades. Only one winner is selected. For this year’s topic, students were to select a figure from the era of the American Revolution (1773-1783) and discuss who he or she was and the contribution that historic character made to the founding of a new nation. The figure must have been an actual person, either one who is well-known or an everyday man, woman, or child who supported the Revolution in any way.
This year’s winner was Katherine Nicholson, Templeton High School, daughter of John E.D. and Cynthia Nicholson. Katherine also won the District VII contest.
American History
The American History essay contest is open to students in the fifth through eighth grades in all accredited schools in North County. The topic of the American History contest this year was “The Stars and Stripes Forever.” Each student was to imagine they were a newspaper reporter and write an article about the first performance of the song that day. The students were to also include information about John Philip Sousa’s life and the story behind the song.