By Dedra Cordle
Staff Writer
Upon winning an essay contest by the American Legion Paschall Post 164, Cade Spence, a third grader at J.C. Sommer Elementary, was presented with an American flag by Cmdr. Jeff Shipley during a special ceremony at the school on Jan. 12. Spence said he entered the contest because he wanted to win a new flag for his school to display.
Jeff Shipley, the Commander of the American Legion Paschall Post 164, knew that it would be a challenge to pick the best essay for their contest asking the community to describe what the American flag meant to them.
“It’s the best question you can ask because there are no wrong answers,” he said during a special ceremony at J.C. Sommer Elementary on Jan. 12. “Everyone has their own opinion about it and that’s one of the best things about freedom.”
But fortunately for Shipley, he was not the one who had to decide which submitted essay was the best. That task fell largely on the shoulders of Nick Saint, the second vice commander at the American Legion Post.
For weeks, Saint poured over dozens of submissions and whittled the list down to a select few. He said he was looking for something that really stood out from the crowd.
Much to his surprise, he found that in Cade Spence, a third grader at J.C. Sommer.
“I almost couldn’t believe a third grader could write what he wrote, but you can tell that it was all Cade,” said Saint.
As the son of an Army veteran, Spence said he and his father often talk about the history of the American flag and what it means to be a citizen of this country.
“It means everything, pretty much,” he said.
Spence said it was the flag’s absence outside of the school that prompted him to write the essay.
According to Principal Elaine McLaughlin, the absence of the flag was due to the fact that the work on the newly built school had not been completed.
“We didn’t even have a parking lot (at the start of the school year),” she said.
But as the months went by, the lack of a flag started to bother Spence, so when his mother Cari told him about the essay contest, he decided he would enter and try to win a new flag to put outside of his school.
In his essay, he wrote about how soldiers fought (and are still fighting) for our freedom. He also touched upon our liberties and our “right to free speech, to vote, to bear arms and religious freedom.”
He didn’t have much expectation that he would actually win, but he said he was “super excited” to learn that his essay was chosen as the best out of all of the submissions and that his school would be getting a new flag to place outside.
But, in a twist, the school purchased a flag to be placed outside before they knew he had won.
That unfortunately timed event did not damper the excitement though and the school decided to throw a mini-celebration for Spence on Jan. 12 in front of his third grade peers.
After the short ceremony was over, an act of diplomacy occurred when Spence and McLaughlin conferred over what to do with the new flag that Shipley presented to Spence. In a unanimous decision, the indoor display case was voted as the best place to keep it.
“This is so special to us that it has to be put on display for years and years and years,” said McLaughlin.
Spence said he was happy with that decision, and even happier than his school has a few flags on hand.
