The month of October is bringing with it a great new opportunity for South’s freshmen this year: the PTA Citizenship Contest.

“Both Citizenship & Reflections are through National PTA. There is a contest for the theme prior to each year’s contest. The themes are broad and designed to encourage students, grades 7-9, to think about what it means to be a citizen,” Vice President of programs for the SMS PTSA Marie Hunter said.

This year’s theme is “I can be a hero in my community by…” Students are encouraged to submit essays or poems that emulate this theme.

The judging for entries at all levels is blind. Councilman Curt Skoog judges entries at the SMS level, and the entries he approves move up to the district level. From there, entries can move up to the state or even the national level.

For Hunter, this contest is very important and has a great capacity to potentially improve the community.

“Perhaps thinking about this topic, writing a poem or essay could help clarify one’s thinking, one’s outlook or one’s actions. Perhaps it could even encourage someone to act differently or take action for something or someone. Personally I think we have been taught to think of ourselves as consumers rather than citizens. Anything that moves us to think in terms bettering our community, whether that is our school, our neighborhood, our city or world is a positive by me,” Hunter said.

Students must submit their entries by Friday, October 16. Further information on the contest can be found on the Kansas PTA website.