Freshman Elayna Mork received first place for the “Second Inaugural 2013 Student Essay Contest,” a competition where students submitted essays explaining what they would say if they were delivering a second term inaugural speech as President.

According to the Constitutional Rights Foundation Chicago, the organization that held the contest, nearly 60 students submitted essays from a dozen high schools across Illinois. Mork received a $500 U.S. Savings Bond as a scholarship for her essay.

“I was really surprised [that I won] because I never win anything, especially not for my writing,” Mork said.

John Sullivan, Mork’s History of World Civilization teacher, expressed pride in Mork’s success.

“We were really surprised and we were obviously very pleased and excited that one of our students had won out of all of the entries that were submitted,” Sullivan said. “And especially because a freshman had won and the contest was open to all high school students.”

Mork said that she talked about global warming, economics, foreign policies and the military in her speech.

“[I’m] not really [passionate about these topics], but my family [has] always [talked] about them ever since I was little,” Mork said.

According to Sullivan, what distinguished Mork’s essay from other submissions was her ability to give a global perspective instead of focusing all on one topic.

“She addressed a number of issues in a short

space, so she was concise but very specific on a number of issues, where the majority of the other papers that were submitted tended to focus only on one issue,” Sullivan said.

According to Sullivan, the essays were extra credit assignments that were submitted in early January.

The results for the contest winners were announced Jan.  21, the same day that President Barack Obama was
inaugurated in Washington D.C. for his second term as president.