Michael Reed expressed a writer’s surprise after he collected the $10,000 grand prize for winning the John F. Kennedy Profile in Courage Essay Contest for High School Students.
“It’s kind of a shock to be given that much money just for writing,” Mr. Reed, 18, said from Boston.
The prize is well-deserved, according to Bloomberg News executive editor Al Hunt, who said Mr. Reed’s essay was the best he’s ever read in 10 years as a judge.
Drawing from earlier research, Mr. Reed’s topic was former West Virginia U.S. Rep. Ken Hechler who “vowed to find a way to require the coal industry to place the health and safety of miners above profit.”
After the 1968 Farmington, W.V., coal mine explosions that claimed 78 lives, Rep. Hechler’s efforts led to passage of the Federal Coal Mine Health and Safety Act of 1969 “in a bold act of political courage for a politician from a coal-producing state,” Mr. Reed wrote.
During Monday’s ceremony at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum, the rising senior class president at Chattanooga Center for Creative Arts persuaded Caroline Kennedy to autograph a copy of his essay and shook hands with “about 600 people” before meeting his 95-year-old essay subject.
“To meet someone I’ve been reading about for so long was really interesting,” he said. “It was like meeting Harry Potter or something.”
PDF: Winning Essay
A Chattanooga Times Free Press Valley Voices staff writer who is planning a journalism career, Mr. Reed offered some advice to young scribes.
“Ernest Hemingway rewrote the end of ‘Farewell to Arms’ 36 times,” he said. “Take your time. A few months of research is definitely worth $10,000.”
About the award
There were 1,863 submissions from 49 states for the nationwide contest, which “invites students from across the nation to write an essay on the political courage of a U.S. elected official,” a news release said.
Mr. Reed receives $5,000 from the John F. Kennedy Library Foundation, which will be matched with $5,000 from John Hancock Financial.
“A professor from Harvard said he was interested in having me in one of his classes, so I think it’s all going toward college,” Mr. Reed said.
Source: JFK Library Foundation
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