By Shayna Kapadia | Editor-in-Chief
Under Senator Barbara Boxer’s request, an American flag was flown over the United States Capitol in honor of senior Sonia Sachar for winning the Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR) Good Citizen scholarship essay competition’s Ohlone Chapter. Though her essay did not advance any further in this national competition, Sachar received the flag as an award along with $800 in scholarship money.
Sachar’s essay was judged against essays written by Joshua Basa from Kennedy High School, Liana Gaspard from Washington High School, and Sophia Espinosa from Moreau Catholic High School – the DAR Good Citizen’s of their respective schools. These students also had flags flown over the capitol for their achievements.
After winning the chapter, Sachar attended a luncheon with every school’s participant.
“I got to meet all the other women who are Daughters of the American Revolution that have been in this chapter for so long,” said Sachar. “They’ve done so many things to preserve American history and heritage”
According to Misty Scholz, the Ohlone Chapter DAR Good Citizen Chair, “[The DAR Good Citizen Award] recognizes and rewards individuals who possess the qualities of dependability, service, leadership, and patriotism in their homes, schools, and communities. These students are selected by their teachers and peers because they demonstrate these qualities to an outstanding degree.”
Once a student is chosen as the DAR Good Citizen for his or her school, the student is invited to participate in the scholarship portion of the program with representatives from other schools in the same chapter. The Ohlone chapter includes all FUSD schools as well as James Logan, Moreau Catholic, and Newark Memorial. However, only four schools, Washington, Irvington, Kennedy, and Moreau, contacted Ms. Scholz with winners.
The participants were given one and a half hours to plan and write an essay regarding the most relevant principle or right in the constitution and explain their choice. Sachar chose to talk about the importance of freedom of religion.
“I wanted to write about freedom of speech, but then I thought everyone was going to pick that,” said Sachar. “With everything that’s going on in the world right now with Islam and ISIS, I thought religion would be more relevant.”
Though Sachar does not wish to go into politics, she appreciates American history.
“I think American history is important to us even though a lot of people discredit it because history is about a bunch of dead people,” said Sachar, “but it teaches us about how we should live our lives today and teaches us how the world works.”
