The mission of the National Society of Daughters of the American Revolution is to promote historic preservation, education and patriotism. These ideals were in evidence Saturday as the Dorothy Q Chapter honored three local high seniors.
This year’s Dorothy Q Chapter Good Citizen Award winners are: North Montgomery High School’s Drew Runyon, son of Craig and Carrie Runyan; Crawfordsville High School’s Keegan Abney, son of Terry and Audra Abney; and Southmont High School’s Madison Livesay, daughter of Daryl and Paige Livesay. Runyan was named the overall essay contest winner and his essay will be forwarded to the state contest.
Each year the DAR Dorothy Q Chapter invites county schools to name their good citizens to participate. Each student composed an original 500-word essay titled “Our American Heritage and Our Responsibility for preserving it,” with a focus question: “How do the combined actions of so many good citizens keep our nation moving forward?”
Only one student is selected from each of the county high schools for the DAR Good Citizen Award, and only one student per year may be honored as a school’s DAR Good Citizen. Each senior winner receives a monetary gift from the chapter, a DAR Good Citizen lapel pin, a certificate and wallet recognition card.
The intent of the DAR Good Citizens Award and Scholarship Contest is to encourage and reward high school seniors who possess the qualities of good citizenship. This award recognizes students who demonstrate outstanding qualities in their homes, schools and communities by; dependability (truthfulness, loyalty and punctuality), service (cooperation, courtesy and consideration of others), leadership (personality, self-control and ability to assume responsibility) and patriotism (unselfish interest in family, school, community and nation).
The Good Citizens Committee was started in 1936, with 10 area high school seniors from Montgomery County high schools who participated. In the contest’s third year, 1939, a girl from CHS was the state winner. Then again in 1946, a state winner from Wingate, and in 1949, we had our third state winner from Crawfordsville. Since then, we have had several from Montgomery County who have been included in the top 13. And once again, a DAR State Winner for 2019 from Montgomery County Dorothy Q Chapter — Conner McVay, a student from Southmont High School.
Michele Borden, the Dorothy Q Chapter Good Citizen Award program chair, recognized the essay judges for this year’s contest --— Nana Rising, Elaine Weir and Ruth Hallett, who was selected as a Good Citizen Award winner her senior year of high school.
“Being chosen for the award is a wonderful reflection of each student,” Borden said. “It indicates the efforts they made in writing an essay and demonstrating outstanding qualities of what they believe in and what they hold dear.”
