Politics

Sentinel Patriot Club giving $10,000 to essay winners

By Bill Moss, Published: June 25, 2014

The Sentinel Patriot Club will announce the winners of its Young Patriot essay contest and present $10,000 in prize money for the winning essays during a luncheon on Thursday.

District Attorney Greg Newman will be the keynote speaker at the first Sentinel Patriot Club essay awards luncheon at Bay Breeze Restaurant on Asheville Highway. The club will present a check for $5,000 to the first place winner and checks totaling $5,000 for the second, third and fourth place winners, organizers said.
The money for the cash prizes came from "a very nice donation from an anonymous donor," said Ron Kauffman, who cofounded the Sentinel Patriot Club with Henry Leissing, who gives talks on the Constitution during club meetings. "I think every high school in the county had at least one entry. West High had about 10."
Kauffman and Leissing formed the club last fall to focus on the Constitution.
"We're NOT about party — Republican or Democrat — nor are we focused on social issues," the club says on its website. "We ARE about pursuing the idea that understanding the Constitution and the intent of its words as originally written is the only way we can reclaim our nation and assure future generations that the American dream of 1776 lives on."
For more information about the club, visit www.sentinelpatriot.com.

Editor's note: An earlier version of this story described the Sentinel Patriot Club as Tea Party affiliated. It is not, according to Ron Kauffman, who was formerly associated with a Tea Party chapter.