2 Eisenhower High Students Place in Tolerance Essay Contest

Disponible en: Español

Two students from Eisenhower High School recently earned honors in the contest sponsored by the Boniuk Institute at Rice University.

The Boniuk Center received hundreds of essays from Houston area schools. The contest’s selection committee selected 10 for special commendation and five for honorable mention. All 15 students were honored this spring at a ceremony held at the Asia Society Texas Center.

In the 11th-12th Grade Division, Som-Mai Nguyen tied for second place with her essay entitled “Definition” while schoolmate Dasia Warner tied for third place with her essay “Turkey and Ham.” This was Nguyen’s third year in a row to place in the contest. She has also participated in the Sacred Sites Quest summer program. Both Nguyen and Warner are students of art teacher Dr. MichaelAnn Kelley.

Winners of the contest received cash prizes: $500 for first place, $300 for runners-up, and $200 for third place.

The competition allows students to identify a need and then both visualize and articulate ways to ameliorate it. This competition rewards students for coming up with creative ways to address problems they encounter in everyday life.

Founded in 2004 with a $5 million endowed gift from Milton and Laurie Boniuk, the Institute is dedicated to nurturing tolerance among all people, especially youth. Its mission is to understand the conditions that make peaceful coexistence possible and to promote those conditions locally, nationally and throughout the world.

The annual essay contest is open to all students enrolled in ninth through 12th grade in a Houston area high school as well as home-schooled students. Essays must be original works composed independently by the author alone. The winners receive cash awards and share brief excerpts from their essays at the awards ceremony.

To lean more about the Embracing Tolerance contest, visit the Boniuk Center website.