Essay Contest Results 2013 

By Ron Reynolds, Essay Chairman, AFSA-Virginia Chapter 

Can you believe it? We had 250 essay contestants this year. That is twice as many than the typical year! It really put our essay judges to work on over-time to read and pick the top ones. This year’s topic was to: “Write a creative, interesting and convincing essay regarding the value and importance of automatic sprinklers in schools.”

 Virginia’s high school seniors responded in a big way. The topic of fire safety in schools apparently really caught their attention. The Virginia Chapter awards six cash prizes. 

The top prize this year was $2500 and will go to Rachel Van Fleet of Mountain View High School, in Stafford, Virginia. Ms. Van Fleet wrote a very moving story about a firefighter explaining how the injuries she had suffered in a school fire as a child would have been avoided had an automatic fire sprinkler been installed in her school, and how the importance of fire sprinklers could not be underestimated. 

 A prize of $750 will be awarded to Michael McKain of Centreville High School, in Clifton, Virginia. Mr. McKain’s essay focused on the tragic fire of the Our Lady of the Angels school in Chicago, in 1958, which resulted in the deaths of 95 students and teachers. His essay brought up the question again: What if the building had automatic fire sprinklers? He points out that if the citizens of our country knew the facts about sprinklers, they would be installed in all schools, “from preschool to universities.” 

A prize of $500 will be awarded to Rachel Potter, who is home schooled. Ms. Potter’s essay characterized sprinklers as “inanimate lifeguards” that look after our nation’s children, guarding them should a fire break out. She points out that we have fire drills, we talk about prevention, but fires still happen. The best way to prepare for a fire is by having a sprinkler system. Three honorable mention awards of $100 each go to:

1. Destiny Renee Barnett, Jefferson Forest High School, Forest
2. Onvara Arthornsombat, Holy Cross Regional School, Lynchburg
3. Carter Allen, Buckingham County High School, Buckingham

Thanks to all of our 250 contestants for entering our contest this year. As usual, it was an absolutely tremendous task to figure out the top winners among such a talented field. We would like to personally commend all of the high school seniors who submitted essays for a job well done! We hope that your knowledge of fire sprinklers proves valuable to you in the years ahead, and wish you the best in your future endeavors.

To read the winning essay, please follow this link.

20th Annual AFSA-Virginia 
Burn Survivors Golf Tournament

To benefit the

and the
Old Dominion Professional Firefighters Burn Foundation 501(c)3.

Wednesday, October 9th, 2013

Registration & Lunch begins at 11:00a.m. | Shot Gun start at 12:30pm | Dinner & Awards at 5:30pm


Williamsburg National Golf Club
Jamestown & Yorktown Courses
3700 Centerville Rd, Williamsburg, VA 23185

Deadline for entry is September 20th, 2013. 
Past years have sold out… so please  register early!

Please follow this link to download the Registration for as an Adobe Acrobat Reader (.pdf) file.

OR

Follow this link to use our online registration.

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Follow this link to dowload the registration and information