The Joe Foss Institute Essay Contest

Independence Day Scholarship Contest will allow you to show your pride for our country and possibly win a nice $5,000 scholarship. If you’re a high school student and are looking for ways to pay for college, read about deadlines, application details and more for this scholarship.

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General Joe Foss, a distinguished Medal of Honor Recipient, and his wife started the Joe Foss Institute to “teach patriotism, democracy, public service, integrity, and an appreciation for America’s freedoms” to future generations with different programs and scholarships. The scholarship featured today is the Independence Day Scholarship Contest . The award amounts are $5,000, $500 and $250 based on how well your essay impresses the judges. This contest is open to high school students in grades 9 through 12 and the theme you’ll have to write about is “I Declare! What it took to declare our independence.” They emphasize the importance of reading and understanding the guidelines so that you’re entry will be accepted into the contest. You’ll be judged on creativity, theme development, clarity of ideas and mechanics (grammar, spelling, punctuation, sentence structure, etc.). The deadline for this scholarship is July 2 2012 .

Application Process

You’ll submit your essay and fill out contact information via an online form. The total word count for your essay should be at least 1500 words. They also require a cover sheet which should include contact information that you previously entered on the online application form. Your essay must be either in Microsoft Word (.doc or .docx) or Open Office (.odt). No other formats will be accepted. Other important points include: work must be original, double-spaced and typed in English, no identifiable excerpts should be found in your essay and only one entry per person is allowed. Also, even though this scholarship is open to all high school students, recent graduates are eligible to apply as long as their graduate date was within a 12 month period of the contest.

About Joe Foss

Joe Foss served in the United States Marine Corps and the Air National Guard during his military career in World War II. Because of his accomplishments through wartime, he received the Medal of Honor which recognized his successful attacks during the Guadalcanal Campaign. He became a fighter ace shooting down multiple enemy aircraft. In total he had 26 enemy aircraft shot down with 16 probably kills tying him with World War I ace Eddie Rickenbacker. His post-military career includes serving as a Republican representative in South Dakota then later becoming governor. He was also the first commissioner of the American Football League, hosted The American Sportsman on ABC and served as president of the National Rifle Association. The Joe Foss Institute has other scholarships and contests that include the Hays Kirby Contest, the Veteran’s Day Contest and a Video Scholarship Contest which they begain in 2011.