The Freedom From Religion Foundation is proud to announce the awarding of $19,450 to students in its 2026 William Schulz High School Essay Contest.
College-bound high school seniors were asked to write a personal persuasive essay based on this prompt: “My favorite freethought/humanist hero/ine. Write a personal essay about your favorite freethinker or humanist and what they did or are doing to improve or enrich our lives.”
FFRF conferred 12 top prizes and 12 honorable mentions this year. (FFRF seeks to distribute essay scholarship monies to a higher number of students, so ties — such as fifth place in this contest — are not regarded in the typical tie fashion, where, in this instance, sixth place would be skipped.)
Winners are listed below and include the college or university they are now attending and the award amount.
FIRST PLACE
Carlie Wong, UC Berkeley, $3,500.
SECOND PLACE
Jacob McBride, Saint Joseph’s University, $3,000.
THIRD PLACE
Isabella Fitch, University of Vermont, $2,500
FOURTH PLACE
Sydney Anker, Azusa Pacific, $2,000.
FIFTH PLACE (tie)
Naija Zamora-Johnson, University of Houston, $1,500.
Noah Bouchard, Cal Poly State San Luis Obispo, $1,500.
SIXTH PLACE
Jasper Koneshwaran, UBC Okanagan, $1,000.
SEVENTH PLACE
Noah Vandeloecht, Washington University, $750.
EIGHTH PLACE (tie)
Emmett Palmer, University of Washington, $500.
Rotimi Esiso, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, $500.
NINTH PLACE
Ariadna Garcia, University of Houston, $400.
TENTH PLACE
Mason Sitts, College of the Redwoods, $300.
HONORABLE MENTIONS ($200 each)
Vanessa Apostolakos, University Of Southern Indiana
Jazlyn Brown, Clark Atlanta University
Anna Mae Corrigan, Oregon State University
Ela Ekinci, Virginia Tech
Donna Lee, USC
Maya Maizland
Rhana Shpoon, University of Central Florida
Samuel Slepack, UNLV
Aayah Vickers, Virginia Tech
Ruby Wagner, Bowling Green University
The high school contest is named for the late William J. Schulz, a Wisconsin member and lifelong learner who died at 57 and left a generous bequest to FFRF.
The state/church watchdog thanks FFRF’s Lisa Treu for managing the many details of this and other FFRF annual student competitions. And we couldn’t judge these contests without our volunteer and staff readers and judges, including: Dan Barker, Anita Barrett, Anne Bendixen, Bri Deyo, Elizabeth Engelhardt, Wrenna Fine, Annie Laurie Gaylor, Richard Grimes, Ricki Grunberg, Susan Haines, Tracy Hoffman, Robert Holley, Sammi Lawrence, Robert Leonhard, Katya Maes, David Malcolm, Tori Mizerak, Barbara Nolta, Charles Riedesel, Roe Mary Sheldon, PJ Slinger and Michelle Smith.
FFRF has offered essay competitions to college students since 1979, high school students since 1994, grad students since 2010 and one dedicated to students of color, now called “first in the family,” since 2016. A fifth contest, open to law students, began in 2019. The winning essays will appear in the November issue of FFRF’s newspaper, Freethought Today.
The Freedom From Religion Foundation is a U.S.-based nonprofit dedicated to defending the constitutional principle of separation between state and church and educating the public on matters relating to nontheism. With over 40,000 members, FFRF is the largest association of freethinkers (atheists, agnostics and humanists) in North America. For more information, visit ffrf.org.
