Below: Skylar Burkhart reading her prize-winning Freedom essay to the Monument Board of Trustees, Feb. 21. Photo by Jim Kendrick

Skyler Burkhart's Freedom Essay

Freedom is a bird with wings; you can fly. Birds have all the freedom. They don't have to stay in one spot their whole life. I see how high the birds fly, and think about how peaceful it must be on a sunny summer day.

In Romania, where I was born, birds have no wings. People who live in Romania don't have any type of freedom. You always see them bossing other people around, and their life is a misery. Its heart breaking to see them wasting their lives. I'm sure that if they could come to America they would, but it's not that simple. You look in the eyes of the children there, and you know right away that they would much rather be somewhere where they had freedom. The people in Romania feel trapped. So they start to age more quickly. If you go to one of the hospitals in Romania, you can hear the babies crying for help. Once you go there, you will feel the urge to help the poor children.

I was born in Romania. My birthparents were drug and alcohol users. Because of this abuse I now have a learning disability. My birthparents room had three mattresses on the floor. In order to get to the bathroom, you had to walk down a hallway. My birthparents had a little boy and a little girl. My mother's not sure if the little girl had legs or not, because as she sat on the mattress her legs were covered with a blanket. My birthparents had another little girl who died right after birth. My birthparents drank and left the two children in a room with a padlock on the door. They had no jobs. This also means that they had no wings. They left me in the hospital where my mother, who I live with now, found me. When I was three months old, I only weighed five pounds. When my mother brought me to America, I weighed nine pounds. I was seven months old. We have no idea if the two year old or the five year old children are still alive.

In America, where I live now, birds have wings. As I said earlier, birds have so many choices about what to do. You never really realize how lucky you are to have freedom, until you go to another country, then you realize you are blessed. If my mother had not adopted me, I probably wouldn't be alive today. I came to America to spread my wings and fly.

Below: Steven Bell reads his Freedom essay to the Palmer Lake Town Council, Feb. 21. Photo by Jim Kendrick

Steven Bell's Freedom Essay

Freedom and liberty, more historic wars have been fought over these two words then land, oil, water, or other tangible resources. Famous authors have written thousands of quotes on the subject of freedom and liberty. Even monuments have been erected in the honor of liberty, yet not one takes the time to explain it. But why? What do these words actually mean? A dictionary would say;" 1. The condition of being free 2. Political independence." But doesn't freedom, liberty, free, and independence all mean the same thing? So what does freedom truly mean?

One word, in my opinion, almost catches the elusive meaning of freedom. Choice. If you are free, you make choices every day of your life. But with this word comes another. Responsibility. Everything you do has consequences and whether those consequences are good or bad is completely up to you. The consequences will always reflect the choices you make.

But even with this great and awesome thing called choice, which has brought thousands of immigrants from everywhere in the world to one nation, we don't appreciate it No one will ever respect the freedom we have as much as someone who has had their freedoms taken away or was born in chains. Sometimes it takes a harsh tragedy to remind us of our freedom.

But when we face that tragedy, a tragedy that threatens our freedom, we fight back. We fight for millions of peoples' hopes, dreams, souls, and courage. People that fight and die to defend our freedom carry all of these things in their hearts, and that is tell everything it represents, or everyone that has died for it. Freedom is a right everyone in the entire world is born into. Yet in some places that freedom is disgraced, ripped from the peoples' very soul. They didn't choose to be born there, under a leader that doesn't respect them, in a culture that confines them. That is why the United States is a super power. Not because of weapons, or technological advances, but because we're free. We have choice, the choice to use our potential for something great. That is what Freedom is.

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