Winner of VFW American Patriot Essay
 Why I am An American Patriot
by Britni Surprenant

      When you think of America what do you think of? Do you think of stars and stripes? Or freedom and love, happiness, safety. Well when I think of America I think of one word. That word describes me and many other people in America. The word: Patriot. I think of this word because I am a patriot.

      Most people define a patriot as someone who is over seas or a famous person helping out. Although this may be true there are many things that each of us can do. I do these things everyday. For example, many people call America the "Melting Pot". Which to me means that we have very diverse cultures. So in a way ccelebrating one's own culture is celebrating America.  I embrace this all the time.

     There are some things I do every day that make me an American Patriot. For instance, every morning at school we are asked to stand and say the Pledge of Allegiance. I do this not because I am told to but I believe I am respecting our country and because I want to display the pride I have. Also I am in an organization called Community Problem Solvers. This is an organization for students who want to help their community. By doing this we are helping others and helping our country. Also when I was in elementary school we had a group called Friends of the Library where we helped keep our library clean.  We also wrote letters to an army soldier in Iraq and he would write back and tell us about what was going on over there.  I believe writing to him opened my eyes even more and showed how lucky we are to live here.  They also had a color guard corps which I was the head of.  I would bring out the American flag before any presentations at school.

     Those are the reasons why I am an American patriot because I love this country. Also because I can help set an example to others who do not understand what being patriotic is all about. I believe by doing simple good deeds and getting involved in things is patriotic and can make this country better than it is and will always be.

 

 

 
 Winner of the Daytona Beach News Journal's Scary Story Contest

 

                                                 A Murdered Soul                                                          

By: Alyssa Tilton, Grade 8 

 The piano plays quietly, but the music is soft, almost unable to be heard from outside the classroom. April has her leg perched upon the barre as she stretches getting ready for pointe class. The music pauses and April, along with the other dancers, moves toward the center of the dance floor. The instructor barks orders and the dancers scatter. The music begins to play, this time with a faster tempo. A cluster of young ladies in tutus and pointe shoes glide across the floor doing a foute combination. April stands in the back keeping to herself, but once the music hits a certain point she is whisked across the floor with such poise and elegance. Once the combinations are finished the roar of claps fill the room as the dancers are dismissed.
 Outside, the crisp autumn air hangs over Broadway, sending a chill down April's spine causing her to tremble. The head lights of taxis illuminate the streets like a fluttering swarm of lightning bugs, on and off they flash. April slowly hugs the inside of the sidewalk as she saunters home. She has this gut feeling that she is being watched. She walks faster, just in case she is being followed. When she turns around to face what is watching her nothing is there. She looks around trying to spot what is watching her but she can see nothing, except for a few taxis zooming past her and the bugs that are hovering around the street lights. She twists back to the direction she was going and continues on.
 April makes it to her home, she opens the door to her magnificent home and no one is there to greet her except for the house maid. She runs up the two flights of stairs to her room, throws her dance bag into her closet, and gets into her pajamas. She shuts her door, locks it, and closes her blinds. With a thud April leaps onto her bed and turns off her light. Her head hits the pillow like a lead brick. As April fell into a deep sleep, her mind began to wander...
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 The alley way was dark, unbelievable dark. Alley cats hissed and scampered under dumpsters as a shadowed figure crept ever so slowly under the only street light that could be seen. The shadowed figure was hard to see in such dark conditions all April could make of it was a tall woman that seemed very pale, almost ghost-like.
 Then her dream took a sudden turn. April was inside an old, almost ancient house. The pale woman was there and wasn't as pale as she was before. But this time there was a man standing in front of the shaded woman. In his hand he held something, April could not tell what. At that moment April noticed that she couldn't be seen, no matter what she did. The pale woman's knees became jello-like and she crashed to the floor. Her life less body was right there before April's eyes. The man walked out the door and disappeared completely out of view.
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 April sat up all sweaty and hot. She glanced around her room and realized that what had just happened was a dream not reality, but she refused to forget what she just saw, for at that very moment she, again, had that gut feeling that she was being watched.
 That following morning April remembered every vivid detail of the dream she had the night before. The pale woman; the man; the old house; and, worst of all, the lifeless body right in front of her. She figured that this dream had some meaning and wanted to pursue her hunch of what she thought someone was trying to tell her. She was determined to figure it out.
 April walked outside into the cool morning air. She turned onto the street she had come down the night before, walked quite a ways until she came to a dead stop. Directly in front of her was the same ancient house that appeared in her dream. She walked very cautiously up to the house, and went inside. There was nobody inside, it seemed as if no one had been inside the house since the early 1920s'. There was not much furniture in the house, but she did recognize the kitchen in which her dream took place, a dusty counter top, no appliances, and no electricity. Only a few oil lamps lit the room, which oddly enough, had been lit recently and were still burning. April found a piece of aged paper folded neatly on the dining room table beside an oil lamp. The letter read,
  
 Thank you to whoever has enough courage to come and put my dying soul to rest. My husband murdered me and no one ever noticed I went missing. You, whoever you are, have calmed my distraught soul, and solved a mystery that has been unsolved since the day I was brutally murdered.
 
 I wish you well,
                         Briggite Dolland. 
                                           11/16/1923
(The letter was still being written as April read it. The last line to the letter appeared in wet ink.)
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 Briggite’s soul had been freed. April now knew that what she had seen and felt happened the way it was meant to.  
 
 Winner of the Daytona Beach News Journal Scary Story Contest
 Tales from the Doghouse
by Joshua Ore, Grade 6
It was a dark and stormy night. Allen decided to take his walk.  He walked to the park, a particularly strange park where twisted Kudzu and poison ivy enveloped everything. As Allen approached, he noticed how the trees cast eerie shadows on the ground that danced in the wind. What was that? A slimy hand on his shoulder! Then relief... just a tree frog, hopping wildly off into darkness.
Then, wait! That wasn't there before! A small, dark, mysterious house in the center of the park? The rain poured down. Allen ran through the vine-infested fields to the small house. A doghouse? It was dry. He willingly crawled inside. Once there, he realized the exit had disappeared. He turned to push on the walls... gone. The rain? Stopped. "I'm dreaming!" he thought. Then he smelled it, death warmed over, filling the air. He saw a gigantic white room, and heard a dog barking.
The bark belonged to a black Great Dane. After three barks, the Dane changed into... Allen! What? Allen felt a changing sensation himself. Fur grew out of his hands, face and feet. "Stay, Allen!" the new Allen said as "old" Allen dropped down on all fours.
Meet Allen, the Great Dane, doomed to stay in that doghouse forever. But every Halloween, he'll have a chance to escape.
It wa a dark and stormy Halloween night, Sarah decided to take a walk to the vine-infested park.......
 
 Drug Free Essay Contest Winner
 by Tyler Rutledge, Grade 6
      Do you want to grow up to be a nobody who has no friends, doesn't have a roof over their head, can't think straight and will eventually die a slow and painful death? If the answer to those questions are no, I would say to you then never take drugs. There are few ways to prevent middle schoolers from taking drugs, but there definitely are some and they should not be ignored.
     First of all, the school should display pictures and have the teachers explain what happens if you do drugs. But once a year is not enough, it should happen at least once every month. I think it would be a great way to show the students how horrible it is to take drugs or drink alcohol.
     Another way to help try to prevent school drug use is to be very strict about it in different ways. For instance, you can have the police canine dogs check through the school thoroughly. You can have the police unit come in whenever they have free time and give examples of what being arrested feels like. This way, students who are doing any type of narcotics are warned about what could be happening in their future.
     The third and final reason I will state today about trying to help prevent middle school drug use is to put up anti-drug use posters all around the school just like we do on red ribbon week - except all year long. Hopefully this will get the message across to the students who are doing drugs that narcotics are terrible for you and will destroy your life.
     Now for the people who viewed this, I hope you see and understand why it is so important to try to stop school drug use and are encouraged to help try to put a halt to this vital problem.