FHS Student Places in Civics Essay Contest

Published January 19, 2017

It can be pretty tough to place in a competition without planning to do so, but that’s just what happened to Franklin High senior Vishnu Reddy recently when he took home second place in the first-ever Civics Essay Contest coordinated by the TN Secretary of State’s office.

Reddy was applying to colleges and writing essay submissions to accompany his applications when he saw the advertisement for the contest and decided to enter.

The point of the essay was to search for new ways to increase the amount of people who vote.

“I had to write about how we could increase voter turnout,” Reddy said. “I talked about new programs and new ways of going about the system to increase voter turnout.”

And while Reddy was excited to place, he didn’t have to do any extra work to do so and he was a little caught off guard by the news.

“I actually wrote it for a college application and it ended up matching the prompt for that essay,” he said. “I was pretty surprised. I submitted it, and then I kind of forgot about it. Then a few months later I heard that I won.”

He may not have planned on entering the contest paying off, but he said he definitely isn’t complaining about the $250 scholarship and free trip to the State Capitol that accompanies the second-place honor.