O’Connor takes third with grandparent essay

The AARP of South Dakota has a Grandparent Essay Contest each year from the fifth graders of South Dakota. It is composed of three regions: southeast, northeast and western. Each division picks a winner and they are then judged for first, second and third places.
Each winner is awarded a prize of money. Paige O’Connor was this year’s third place winner this past year and was awarded $100. The awards are usually given out at the Philip AARP’s May annual meeting, but this year the meeting was cancelled.
Each unit is also given medals to each first, second and third place winner. “We did not receive the medal this year as of yet,” said Kay Ainslie. “We do have last year’s medals to be given to the winner of our unit as they were late getting here,” she added.
The essay contest has been going on since 2003. The Philip unit asks each fifth grade teacher to have the students write about their grandparents. The essays are then collected (this year they were collected in February) and judged. The winning essay is forwarded to the state.
For more information, visit https://www.sdrsp.org/grandparent-essay