The Freedom From Religion Foundation is proud to announce $19,850 in scholarship money to the winners of the 2024 William Schulz High School Essay Contest.
College-bound high-school seniors were asked to write a personal persuasive essay based on this prompt: “How can young ‘Nones’ help transform the United States with their secular values, such as by voting?”
FFRF awarded 12 top prizes and 14 honorable mentions. (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
Finn Mosher, Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, $3,500
Second place
Garrett Hartfelder, University of Southern California, $3,000
Third place
Ashkon Shirazi, Brown University, $2,500
Fourth place
Toby Shu, Georgetown University, $2,000
Fifth place (tie)
Olivia English-Saunders, Michigan State University, $1,500
Lynn Sepersky, University of Wisconsin, $1,500
Sixth place
Ivy Nichols, Colorado State University, $1,000
Seventh place
Natalie Mendoza, Arizona State University, $750
Eighth place
Quinn Weidner, North Carolina State University, $500
Ninth place (tie)
Evelyn Dietz, Rollins College, $400
Brandon Norman, Mercer University, $400
Tenth place
Emily Turner, Case Western Reserve University, $300
Honorable mentions ($200 each)
Brietta Chen, Georgia Institute of Technology
Anushka Chillale, University of Michigan
Jayla Cole, Colorado College
Abrahm Drake, Dickinson State University
Ellie Emmelhainz, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
Emily Fadgen, University of California-Riverside
Tyler Howell, University of Florida
Sarah Lam, UC-San Diego
Samuel Lund, Colorado State University
Jaiden Maltbia, Fisk University
T Schiding, West Chester University
Elijah Shewell, St. Mary’s College of Maryland
Jacey Tanioka, Lewis & Clark College
Aaminah Zeinelabdin, Howard 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.
FFRF warmly thanks FFRF’s Lisa Treu for managing the infinite details of this and FFRF’s other annual student competitions. And we couldn’t judge these contests without our volunteer and staff readers and judges, including: Don Ardell, David Chivers, Eric Evans, Richard Grimes, Tim Hatcher, Dan Kettner, Jeffrey LaVicka, Sammi Lawrence, Katya Maes, David Malcolm, Kurt Mohnsam, Chris O’Connell, Andrea Osburne, JoAnn Papich, Brooks Rimes, Sue Schuetz, Rose Mary Sheldon, PJ Slinger, Kimberly Waldron and Karen Lee Weidig.
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 since 2016. A fifth contest, open to law students, began in 2019.
The Freedom From Religion Foundation is a national nonprofit organization with over 40,000 members across the country. Our purposes are to protect the constitutional principle of separation between state and church, and to educate the public on matters relating to nontheism.
