Jim Karleskint and Andy Burke with the VFW Post 9271 presented Patriots Pen essay awards to Tonganoxie Middle School students and Voice of Democracy essay winners to Tonganoxie High School students.

They also presented teacher of the year awards at each school level. The local VFW each year participates in the national essay contest.

Karleskint told the school board that the district has always forged a strong partnership with the VFW.

He also noted that former TMS principal Mark Altman also supported the group and that he missed the late principal alongside the school community. Altman served first as an assistant principal and then principal at TMS for several years. Altman was at TMS near the end of the school day earlier this year when he was taken to a local hospital for a medical emergency. He later died at the hospital.

Karleskint also spoke about working with Assistant Superintendent Tonya Phillips in another school district and remembering her youngest son when he was much younger.

That son, Caden Phillips, won first place in the Voice of Democracy essay contest at THS.

Katie Skinner placed second and Benjamin Manus and Andrew Willson tied for third.

Shruthi Kumar, a high school senior from Marian High School in Omaha, Neb., was named the 2019-20 Voice of Democracy first-place winner. Shruthi’s speech on the theme, “What Makes America Great,” won her a $30,000 college scholarship. Shruthi was sponsored by VFW Post 1581 in Omaha, Nebraska.

In the Patriots Pen division, TMS student Addison Booker won first place at the local level. Kendall Smith placed second, Marshall Wright third and Katherine Carter, Harlem Morando and Alexandria Trimble all were honorable mention.

Teachers winning annual awards this year were the elementary school’s Sharity Porter, middle school’s LeAnn Bond and high school teacher Pam Arevalo.

Bond excitedly left the podium with her award, exclaiming that she never wins anything. She then was reminded that she forgot the accompanying cash prize that came with the award.

Arevalo, meanwhile, also had the school board and audience laughing after telling a story about when one of the school board members, Justin Sturgeon, was one of her students.

The local VFW normally has a pizza night at the post home to celebrate the students and allow them to read their essays, but that tradition was scratched last year and this year due to the COVID-19 pandemic.