Post 11508 Home

Voice of Democracy
Scholarship

Rules and Entry Information

STUDENT PARTICIPATION INFORMATION:
WHAT IS THE PURPOSE OF THE COMPETITION?
Voice of Democracy is a National Audio Essay Competition that is conducted annually during the fall school term. This competition was designed to foster patriotism and to give high school students the opportunity to voice their opinion and address their responsibility to our country. The Veterans of Foreign Wars of the United States and its Ladies Auxiliary truly hope that every high school in our country will provide the opportunity for its students to take part in this competition. Through classroom study projects and special assignments, students will be motivated, while writing and speaking, to express their opinion about their personal obligations and better understand the rights and responsibilities of being an American.

WHO IS ELIGIBLE TO COMPETE?
Students in the 9th, 10th, 11th or 12th grade who are properly enrolled in a public, private, parochial high school or a home study program in the United States, its territories and possessions or enrolled in an overseas school as a dependent of U.S. military or U.S. civilian personnel are eligible to compete. Foreign Exchange students and adults over the age of 19 are not eligible to compete.

WHAT ARE THE AWARDS AND OPPORTUNITIES?

• Each Department (state) first place winner receives an all-expense-paid trip to Washington, D.C.
• Four fun-filled days of tours, theaters, visits to monuments, meeting with heads of state and often the President or Vice President of the United States.
• The opportunity to compete for National scholarships totaling over $141,000.
• First Place National Winner receives a $25,000 scholarship.
• Second Place National Winner receives $16,000 scholarship.
• Every National winner receives a minimum $1,000 scholarship.
• State awards are several hundred dollars for 1st, 2nd and 3rd places.
• District awards are several hundred dollars for 1st, 2nd and 3rd places.
• Post awards are 1st place ($100.00), 2nd place ($75.00), and 3rd place ($50.00).

The National Judging is held in Washington, D.C. prior to the students' arrival and the winners are announced at a special reception in their honor. All National scholarships are paid directly to the American University, college or Vocational/technical School as selected by the recipient. Disbursement is made directly to the college/school upon receipt of proper notice from the college, certifying that the recipient has been accepted and is enrolled. All scholarship monies are held in escrow (for ten years from the date of high school graduation) at National Headquarters and disbursed as needed until the scholarship is totally withdrawn. The funds may be used for tuition, books, computers, laboratory fees and/or other items relating specifically to the student's formal education. Clothing, room and board and pocket money are not considered authorized expenditures. All questions concerning scholarship disbursement should be referred to the National Director for review.
Numerous opportunities also exist to win valuable scholarships and awards at each level of the competition, as most VFW Posts/Auxiliaries offer monetary awards to participants who place in their local Post competition.

The 2004-2005
theme is

"Celebrating Our Veterans' Service"

Deadline for entries is November 1, 2004.

WHAT IS THE LENGTH OF THE ESSAY?
Not less than three minutes or more than five minutes.

WHAT IS THE COMPETITION DEADLINE?

Student Entry Deadline.....
NOVEMBER 1st

WHERE DOES A STUDENT GO TO APPLY?
Entries in the Voice of Democracy Competition MUST be sponsored by a VFW Post. Full cooperation with a VFW Post is vital to a successful competition. Please take the time to:

• Contact the local VFW Post in your community (Post 11508, San Fernando Valley, CA) their Voice of Democracy Chairman is Perry Jones Email pfjones1@ix.netcom.com
• Call or E-MAIL the State Headquarters http://www.vfw.org/calendar/deptmail.shtml , or http://www.vfw.org/vfw_links/vfwdepartments.shtml
  Indicate that you are interested in participating in the Voice of Democracy Competition and ask them for information on the nearest participating (sponsoring) VFW Post.
• You may visit the National website at: http://www.vfw.org/yourtown/you_VoiceOf.htm
• Any entry submitted to the National VFW Headquarters will be returned to sender.

HOW DO I DO THE RECORDING?
It is recommended that all essays be recorded on good-quality Standard cassettes (not miniature cassettes). Participants should be encouraged to record their essays using professional equipment that is often made available as a public service by local community-based radio stations.
HOW ARE THE AUDIO ESSAYS JUDGED?
All eligible students will be judged on their interpretation of the competition theme. This competition is not intended to be a speech competition and judges should not require a participant to give an oral/personal presentation. All participants should be judged by listening to the cassette tape submitted by the student. The written essay script is needed in the processing of the entry, however, grammar, punctuation, spelling, etc... are not a part of the judging process.

Point values are assigned as follows:

• DELIVERY 20
• ORIGINALITY 40
• CONTENT 40
  
  100 Points Maximum

COMPETITION RULES:

1. The recorded essay must not be less than three minutes, or longer than five minutes. Care should be taken to ensure that recordings are accurately timed. A five-second variation is acceptable to compensate for possible differences in mechanical equipment.
2. The recorded essay must be recorded in the participant's own voice (ask about Special Handicapped Student exception). The essay read by the student should be the only sound on the cassette tape. The essay must be spoken in English, not sung. No background sounds (to include music) will be allowed.
3. Participants cannot identify or in any way name themselves, their school, city or state within their written essay or their recorded audio cassette tape. However, it is important that you label your cassette tape and label the copy of your written essay to help alleviate any confusion over the ownership of the entry.
4. Only 9th, 10th, 11th, and 12th grade high school students, who have not graduated from High School, are eligible to compete. Adults (over the age of 19) are not eligible to compete. Former first place Department (state) VOD winners and Foreign Exchange students are not eligible to compete.
5. Contestants are allowed to enter only once (one Post competition), contestants found in violation of this rule will face elimination from the competition and will be required to return any and all prize money awarded or received.
6. Essay must be contestant's original work and a product of the contestant's own thinking. The approach to the theme should be positive and focus on the theme. Quotations may be used sparingly and should be plainly identified wherever used.
7. All entries will be submitted on good-quality audio cassette tape (not miniature cassettes). The participant can re-record their essay as many times as needed throughout the levels of competition to improve the audio quality, as long as they follow their original winning essay script; this allows for the improvement of noisy or inferior recordings. Grammatical changes are allowed as long as the original message is not changed or altered. All contestants are judged based solely on their audio tape presentation; the judging procedure and criteria does not include or allow provision to judge the quality of a contestant's written essay based on spelling, punctuation, sentence structure, neatness, grammar, etc............
8. Local jurisdictions should not impose additional rules or requirements on the student participants. Students are competing in a nationwide audio-essay competition that requires participating Posts to adhere to a standardized set of rules. Students that enter our competition expect to be judged solely on their audio/essay entry, as provided in the competitions published judging criteria. Disqualification based on the student's attendance at a local or state event is not acceptable as it overrides our standardized fair judging practices and is contrary to the essay-based focus of our competition.

Local Students (San Fernando Valley, CA) may contact our Post chairman for an entry package. pfjones1@ix.netcom.com

Read last year's national winning entry http://www.vfw.org/yourtown/nyscript.htm

Download information:

Student participation Rules (MS Word file)
Student participation entry form-- (MS Word file)

Flyer for School use-- (MS Word file)

Student participation information and entry form-- from VFW National (PDF file)
        (Requires the Acrobat plug in)    

History of the Voice of Democracy Scholarship VOD History http://vfw11508.brinkster.net/VODHistory.html