Ridgefield High School student Julia Clavi was a national semifinalist in the annual Profiles in Courage Contest. She was among the top 15 student finalists. Her evocative essay on Jose Canales will be published on the Profiles in Courage website and she will receive a monetary award.
The annual Profile in Courage Essay Contest invites high school students from across the nation to write an essay on an act of political courage by a US elected official. The contest is a companion program of the John F. Kennedy Profile in Courage Award™, named for Kennedy’s Pulitzer Prize-winning book, Profiles in Courage, which recounts the stories of eight US senators who risked their careers by embracing unpopular decisions for the greater good. This year, 2,290 essays were submitted from students in fifty states, Washington, DC, and Puerto Rico, and from US citizens in China, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Luxembourg, Peru, Philippines, Qatar, Singapore, Spain, South Korea, and the United Kingdom.