Ithaca High School Students Win French Embassy Essay Competition

Ithaca High School students Jacob Evelyn (senior) and Mary Eloundou (sophomore) were awarded first prize and third prize in an essay competition to celebrate the French Presidency of the European Union, which ran from July – December 2008.  Janet Bowman, French language teacher at Ithaca High School, learned of the competition through the Cornell Institute for European Studies’ outreach program.  She offered extra class credit to all of her students who entered the competition, which was open to high school students from NY, Connecticut and New Jersey. Over 400 students from the tri-states region submitted essays on the subject of ‘What does the European Union mean to you?”  All winners were invited to an award ceremony at Florence Gould Hall, New York NY on December 5, 2008, at which the overall winners were announced.  Evelyn’s prize included a trip to France valued at 5000 Euros and Eloundou’s prize was a luxury gift bag that contained French perfume, books and music.  Full details of the competition, as well as photos from the award ceremony can be found at www.teacheurope.org.  To read the winning essays go to http://www.teacheurope.org/essays/Evelyn.htm and http://www.teacheurope.org/essays/Eloundou.htm

Contact Information
Catherine Perkins
Cornell Institute for European Studies
255-7592
cp227@cornell.edu