Every Year the Sons of the American Revolution
holds a Youth Education Poster Contest
Background
Criteria for the poster contest – the contestants are elementary school students from around the country. The objective of the poster submission is to create an original poster depicting an event of the American Revolution. No photos, no cutouts, all original content prepared by the student.
Who is involved – here in Cincinnati, members of the Cincinnati Chapter of the Sons of the American Revolution work with the area participating schools, their teachers, administrators and students to enter the contest and our Youth Awards / Education team provides mentoring to assist the process.
Judging – once the posters are collected a tireless team of SAR members take time to review and determine the “Best in Class” award winners. There were over 200 entries to compete for this poster award in the Cincinnati area.
Process – there is a poster competition at the local (Greater Cincinnati), State level (Ohio) and National SAR level. Winners of the local are submitted to State, the State winners are submitted to National.
For more information on the SAR Youth Awards contests, please see the link below:
The results are in for the Poster contest
This year, Elizabeth Stewart, a 5th grader at Little Miami Elementary School created a poster about the Boston Tea Party.
Cincinnati SAR Representatives – Ed Bonniwell (L) and George Stewart (R) present award to Elizabeth Stewart at Little Miami Elementary School
We are pleased to announce that Ms. Stewart’s poster won first place out of 200+ poster contestants in the Cincinnati area. She worked on her poster for over two months, fine tuning her entry to the judging competition.
In addition, Ms. Stewart’s poster was submitted to the State of Ohio (OSSAR) Sons of the American Revolution contest.
State of Ohio Winner! We are honored to announce Ms. Stewart was the winner of the State of Ohio contest.
On Friday April 12th, representatives of the Cincinnati Chapter Sons of the American Revolution – George Stewart and Dr. Ed Bonniwell traveled to Little Miami Elementary School and presented Elizabeth with a SAR Award Certificate and a check for $100 in front of her class. You should have seen her expression when we entered the classroom.
George Stewart, Elizabeth Stewart and Dr. Ed Bonniwell present Award Certificate
Congratulations to Elizabeth Stewart, her school teachers, her parents and the administration of the school for participating and putting in their all to making this program a success.
An interesting development came out of the visit to Ms. Stewart’s classroom. After the brief award presentation, four separate social studies teachers asked the SAR representatives to come to their class and spend some time with their students, talking about the history of the American Revolution, what life was like, the poster contest and answered questions these curious students asked.
This past year, a decision was made by our chapter to go to the schools of the award winners and present the awards direct to the students, in their classroom. This gives the student the benefit of peer recognition. We believe this change will be very successful.
George Stewart and Ed Bonniwell very much enjoyed their visit and a chance to share living history with our students. Sharing the history of the founding of our country is the primary goal of the Youth Education program of the SAR.
In full disclosure, George Stewart is the grandfather of Ms. Elizabeth Stewart. To show no favoritism, Mr. Stewart was not on the judging committee for the posters nor were the judges aware of Ms. Stewart’s royal heritage.
A Proud Moment for George Stewart and his granddaughter Elizabeth Stewart
The truth of the matter is that George Stewart is the former President of the Cincinnati Chapter of the SAR. No doubt however that Mr. Stewart’s patriotism rubbed off on his granddaughter. We are so happy for Elizabeth Stewart and George Stewart for this award.
George Stewart announcing the winner of the Cincinnati Chapter SAR Poster Award winner.
The next step in this journey will be Elizabeth Stewart’s poster being submitted to the National SAR contest in May 2024.
We as a sponsoring chapter and a special Grandfather will be keeping our fingers crossed for a victory at National SAR competition.
We wish her all the best of luck!
Huzzah!
