- April 19, 2024
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Sponsored by VFW Post 8696, senior Faith Hannah Lea won the statewide Voice of Democracy/Patriotic Pen contest and was honored at a dinner on Feb. 27.
Lea finished third in the state last year as a junior and immediately started working on ideas for this year's competition. When the topic was announced ("Is This the Country the Founders Envisioned?") she found that her ideas fit well, and she got to work.
"I spent months writing, revising, rewriting, to make it the best essay I could, and it got to the point that it clicked," Lea said. Listen to a recording of the essay here (or read it below).
She won more than $2,000 in scholarships for the essay, which is also in the running for a national award, to be announced in April.
Winning the state competition "was a huge shock," she said.
Lea, who is homeschooled, is nearly done with her senior year of high school but also got accepted to Stetson University and is already attending. An aspiring creative writer, she said she is double majoring in management and molecular biology, with hopes of attending med school.
Lea's essay:
A congressional house divided against itself. Wars. Kneeling for the national anthem. As I think about what is happening in our nation, it appears that America has taken a turn for the worse and is flooded with indecencies and evil. Violation of our Constitutional rights. Rioting. Endless attacks on our freedoms and numerous school shootings. I look around, and it seems that our nation is plagued with hatred and discord. Watching the news, I see that America has gotten severely off track. It would be easy to be pessimistic and say that this is no longer the country the founders envisioned. But I am optimistic. Why? Let me tell you the story a steam engine, known as the Spirit of America, so you can see.
Never before had anyone envisioned a steam engine like the Spirit of America. Inspired by the works of Paul Revere, Benjamin Franklin, and John Adams, her blueprints were drawn out and a team of architects, engineers, and mechanics designed the Spirit of America out of materials never before seen by man: Freedom, liberty, and equality. On her red, white, and blue front are inscribed the words “In God We Trust.” She gained momentum as thousands of brave men and women left the bonds of the British to embark on a journey like no other. To lead them on this journey was a man who would conduct this engine down a path of equality and straight into history: George Washington. He knew not where this journey would lead them, but he had God and the Constitution to guide him as he led the newly formed United States of America.
But the journey was not always smooth. Only a few years later the engine derailed during the tumultuous times of the Civil War as the scourge of slavery pulled her off the tracks. Her crew was quick to react, and her new conductor, Abraham Lincoln, used the tools of emancipation to right the engine on the rails as men and women of all kinds shouted in unison “E Pluribus Unum,” “out of many, one.”
The Spirit of America continued on her remarkable journey for nearly two hundred years. More and more passengers boarded at each stop along the way. Each passenger shared the yearning to be part of something more than themselves. Cars were added onto the end of the ever-growing train that she pulled to accommodate the new arrivals. New amendments were added to the Constitution to enable all her passengers to have a say in the decisions of which way to go at junctions. That is, until the Great Depression and then Hitler showed up at one of the boarding stations and stopped the engine in its tracks. Fear spread through the cars like wildfire. The passengers’ expressions within seconds turned blank and chalky. But Franklin D. Roosevelt guided the Spirit of America through this trying time by using the “arsenal of democracy” and just a few years later they were traveling at the highest speed yet.
Thousands of her passengers were lost when terrorists took over airplanes and flew into several of her cars on September 11, 2001. The shock of this event slowed the Spirit of America, but it certainly did not stop her. Though her course was forever altered, this was a defining point in the history of this unique engine. While passengers and crew mourned the loss of their friends and families, their faith and friendship and our founding principles guided them through this confusing junction.
Many threats, such as the assassinations of numerous presidents, have attempted to run the Spirit of America completely off the rails. Each of these threats failed–the Spirit of America remains on the tracks. These threats inflicted the Spirit of America with many scrapes, scars, and scratches–each of these a reminder of the triumphs and troubles through which she carried her passengers.
No, this is not the country which our founders envisioned. Currently, our nation is being torn apart at the seams by those who would love nothing more than to see her fall. We are at a horrific junction in our nation’s history, but because of her history and the resolve of our Republic, she will be righted when she tips and will always stand strong to the Constitution. She has triumphed after tragedy and stood in the face of adversity and strife and stood true to the words inscribed on her front: In God We Trust. The Spirit of America will not run out of steam on my watch. She will once again be righted upon the tracks and we will return to the great nation the founders envisioned.
