Jamestown fifth grader Monroe Maus wins American Legion essay honor

Monroe Maus, a fifth grader at St. John’s Academy in Jamestown, won top honors in American Legion Auxiliary Unit 14’s essay contest, giving Stutsman County a local face for the nation’s run-up to its 250th birthday.

The contest centered on “Celebrating America’s 250th Birthday and the Veterans Who Fought for Our Freedom,” a theme that tied patriotism to the service of veterans and asked students to think about what American history means at the local level. Maus’s win put a Jamestown-area student among the young voices chosen to reflect on that question.

The American Legion Auxiliary’s Americanism Essay Contest is open to students in grades 3 through 12 and is divided into six classes, including a special-needs division. Essays advance through local, state, division and national judging, creating a ladder that can carry a child’s work from a classroom assignment to national recognition.

At the national divisional level, winners receive a $50 award and a $50 donation made in the student’s name to the Children of Warriors National Presidents’ Scholarship Fund. The contest is designed to teach students the value of patriotism and what it means to be Americans, while also giving local units a way to recognize young writers who connect civic lessons to current events and historical memory.

For the 2025-2026 cycle in North Dakota, local unit essay submissions were due by March 1, 2026, and unit winners were forwarded to the Department of North Dakota by March 15, 2026. That schedule placed local judging at the front end of the state’s Americanism program, which also includes flag etiquette, Veterans Day observances and other youth civics activities.

The American Legion, chartered by Congress in 1919, describes itself as the nation’s largest wartime veterans service organization. Through programs like the essay contest, the Auxiliary keeps those ideals in front of younger students, and Maus’s win shows how a fifth grader from St. John’s Academy can carry that work into Jamestown classrooms and family conversations as America approaches 250 years.