The certified winners will receive $5,000 scholarship this program year due to the cancellation of the National Oratorical Contest.
The 2021 American Legion National Oratorical Contest, a high school U.S. Constitutional speech contest, was scheduled for April 9-11 in Indianapolis but canceled due to health and safety concerns with the current pandemic.
Because the national contest was canceled, for this program year youth who were certified by their respective American Legion department as the department oratorical champion will be awarded a $5,000 academic scholarship sponsored by the American Legion Child Welfare Foundation and The American Legion. For department champions to be awarded the scholarship, departments must have had certified their oratorical winner to National Headquarters by March 15 as stated in the National Oratorical Contest Rules.
The following are the 46 certified 2021 American Legion department oratorical winners:
Alaska: Matthew Nash
Alabama: Luke Daniel Pollock
Arkansas: Sophia Aimee Wright
Arizona: Hannah Shin
California: Regina Irene Molitoris
Colorado: Paige G Kastens
Washington, D.C.: Willow Star Singleton
Delaware: Dorothy E McCormick
Florida: Max D. Schaked
France: Sydney Macauley
Georgia: Vinayak Ravishankar Menon
Iowa: Joseph Michael Junker
Indiana: Harris M. Collins
Kansas: Owen Miller
Kentucky: Jackson Thomas Boone
Louisiana: Kamryn Ross Passman
Massachusetts: Grace Scott
Maryland: Srivatsaan Kalpana Sreenivasan
Michigan: Jack Tyler Smith
Minnesota: Hazel E. Chvatal
Missouri: Vignesh Kumar
Montana: Margaret Evelyn Martin
North Carolina: Emma Louise Hall
North Dakota: Jacob N Schulz
Nebraska: Sarah Marie Lasso
New Hampshire: Valerie Elizabeth McDonnell
New Jersey: Greta Leigh Davis
New Mexico: Sarah Madeline Morgan Smith-Myers
Nevada: Eleanor Reynolds
New York: Ian Chung
Ohio: Liberty Virginia Menke
Oklahoma: Aynsley Brooke-Coker Davis
Oregon: Kalyn Rae Lafayette
Pennsylvania: Noah Benjamin Safford
Puerto Rico: Dylan Hernandez
Rhode Island: Grace Elizabeth Starosciak
South Carolina: William Frederick Sander
South Dakota: Fiala Jane Herceg
Tennessee: Robert W. Keeton III
Texas: Jacob Groninga
Utah: McKya Anderson
Virginia: Connor Ryan Handwerk
Vermont: Avery Taylor Carter
Washington: Swadesh Satyamohan Sistla
Wisconsin: Braiya Lee Nolan
Wyoming: Aaron Jay Swaney II
- Oratorical