{"id":203765,"date":"2026-03-13T18:11:38","date_gmt":"2026-03-13T23:11:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/?p=203765"},"modified":"2026-03-13T18:11:40","modified_gmt":"2026-03-13T23:11:40","slug":"essay-winners-4","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/2026\/03\/13\/essay-winners-4\/","title":{"rendered":"Essay winners&#8230;"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"aligncenter size-full\"><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"550\" height=\"413\" src=\"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/Optimist-Essay-Contest-Winners-25-26.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-203766\"\/><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n<p>The Optimist Club of Van Wert recently held its annual essay contest for the 2025-2026 school year, based on the topic: \u201cHow My Acts of Service Help Me Understand What My Community Means to Me.\u201d Three local winners from Van Wert High School presented their winning essays and were honored at the Club meeting on March 12. Meah Johnson won first place and was awarded $300; Caroline Haggerty, second-place winner received $200, and third-place winner Savannah Johns was awarded $100. Johnson\u2019s essay was advanced to the district level for further judging for a chance at college scholarships through Optimist International, the worldwide Optimist volunteer organization. The Optimist Club thanked Bitsi Clark, Kylee Moody, and Kate Kroeger for judging this year\u2019s 46 essay entries from the local area schools. The Van Wert club, focused on youth, consists of area leaders and business representatives dedicated to improving the Van Wert community. <em>Photo submitted<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Optimist Club of Van Wert recently held its annual essay contest for the 2025-2026 school year, based on the topic: \u201cHow My Acts of Service Help Me Understand What My Community Means to Me.\u201d Three local winners from Van Wert High School presented their winning essays and were honored at the Club meeting on [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-203765","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-27 00:18:41","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/203765","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=203765"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/203765\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":203767,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/203765\/revisions\/203767"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=203765"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=203765"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=203765"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}