DAR honors history essay winners
Alaina Voeller, a seventh-grader, and her sister Aimsley Voeller, a fifth-grader, won their grade levels with essays about life during the Boston Massacre.
Alaina, who also won the chapter's contest when she was in sixth grade, wrote a 600- to 1,000-word essay about the event, which happened March 5, 1770.
She portrayed an older woman telling her grandchild about her girlhood perceptions of the massacre and her parents' reaction. To the youngster, the grandmother's "words were more precious than fine silver," Alaina wrote.
Aimsley wrote a 300-600 word essay telling of a girl, Bella, on March 6, 1770. "I didn't think any amount of time could heal this," Aimsley wrote, adding that Bella also was worried about other civil unrest that played out in Boston the same week.
Both Aimsley and Alaina are students at Country Faith Christian Academy in Newberg. Eleanor Fuhrer, essay contest chair for the Yamhill Chapter, presented each with a certificate, a bronze medal and a check for $100.
State Regent Donna Dial and state History Chair Mary Parrott joined local DAR members for the meeting.
Parrott also had awards for the Yamhill County winners. Presenting them with silver medals, she announced that both students' essays had gone on to place first in Oregon in their grade categories.
"I expect them both to join us next year with a new topic," Parrott said.
Donna Lake, regent of the Yamhill Chapter, added, "it's amazing what these youth can do."
The girls will record themselves reading their essays for inclusion in the state DAR's annual conference this spring. The event will be virtual.
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