WORTHAM HIGH SCHOOL students earning top awards in the VFW Voice of Democracy contest are, front l-r, Samantha Lane, first place, Lacey Hall, second place, Jennifer Whitmire, third place, and back l-r, Jourdan Vaughn, fourth place and Zach Martinez, fifth place. Most influential community members and winners of the essay and speech contests were honored by Fairfield’s Wilbur H. Bailey Memorial VFW Post 5872 at a banquet held Friday night at the VFW hall.

Patriot’s Pen essays are open to students in sixth, seventh and eighth grades, and Voice of Democracy speech contests include high school students, all competing from Fairfield, Teague and Wortham.

The contests are held to foster patriotism in youth, and to provide an opportunity for students to voice their opinions about personal obligations as an American.

Patriot Pen winners are first place: Shayla M. Bennett and Sara S. Sessions of Wortham, Keil Meredith of Fairfield and Luke Rachet of Streetman, and Kassandra K. Stafford and Jackie R. Acevedo of Teague.

VFW CONTEST WINNERS from Wortham junior high school are, l-r, Kierra Busby, second place, Sara Sessions, first place, Katie Looney, third place and Shayla Bennett, first place. Second place essays were awarded to Kierra K. Busby of Wortham, Cade Thomas Carroll of Streetman, and Alexa L. Anzelmo of Mexia;

Third places were earned by Katie Looney of Wortham, William W. Higgins of Streetman and William K. Hayworth of Teague.

Voice of Democracy speech contest top honors were given to Samantha R. Lane of Wortham high school, Daniel J. Wood of Fairfield high school, and Amanda N. Massey of Teague high school.

Other awards in the speech contest went to Fairfield high school students Caleb Grant, second place, Taylor L. Moore, third place, Morgan Prihoda, fourth, Dillon L. Smith, fifth and Samantha E. Wemple, sixth place.

At Wortham high school, honorees were Lacey E. Hall, second place, Jennifer R. Whitmire, third, Jourdan M. Vaughn, fourth, and Zachariah D. Martinez, fifth place.

Adult awards went to Tammy Chapman, high school teacher of the year, Christine Towels, elementary teacher of the year, Tammy McCord, middle school teacher of the year;

Policeman of the year Lawrence Michael Warren, volunteer fireman of the year Don Dunn, EMS employee of the year Chris Wirtz and deputy of the year Clayton Aldrich.