Pete Buttigieg: Vote Sanders -- 2000 WINNING ESSAY BY PETER BUTTIGIEG

[ancianita]

INDIANA STUDENT’S WORK CHOSEN AS BEST ENTRY IN NATIONAL JOHN F. KENNEDY PROFILE IN COURAGE ESSAY CONTEST

News Release
For Immediate Release
Further Information: Tom McNaught [phone]
Tuesday, May 02, 2000

Read the 2000 winning essay by Peter Buttigieg.

Peter Buttigieg, a senior at St. Joseph’s High School in South Bend, Indiana, will be honored by Caroline Kennedy and other members of President Kennedy’s family during a May 22, 2000 ceremony at the John F. Kennedy Library for his prize-winning entry in the national John F. Kennedy Profile in Courage Essay Contest for High School Students.

The Profile in Courage Essay Contest invites students from across the nation to write an essay about a current political issue at the local, state or national level and an elected official in the United States who is acting courageously to address that issue. The award is named for President Kennedys 1957 Pulitzer prize-winning book, Profiles in Courage, which recounts the stories of eight U.S. Senators who risked their careers to fight for what they believed in. The essay contest, which includes a $3,000 prize, is sponsored by the John F. Kennedy Library Foundation and Fleet Bank.

Buttigieg’s essay, which was chosen from more than 600 essays submitted by high school students across the nation, centered on the integrity and political courage demonstrated by U.S. Congressman Bernie Sanders of Vermont, the nation’s only Independent member of Congress.

“Sanders’ courage is evident in the first word he uses to describe himself: Socialist,” Buttigieg writes. His essay cites a number of the Congressman’s courageous and politically risky stands on issues facing the nation, including his strong support for gun control and same-sex marriages, and for his advocacy for senior citizens affected by inflated drug prices in the United States.

https://www.jfklibrary.org/about-us/news-and-press/press-releases/2000-pica-essay-contenst

Peter Buttigieg's Essay:

https://www.jfklibrary.org/learn/education/profile-in-courage-essay-contest/past-winning-essays/2000-winning-essay-by-peter-buttigieg?fbclid=IwAR2Q3-HnaN1Ur8uIBC832qUcB8yjDscsfbuEUYMpfGH4_ZwEGa8ZtYNQmK0

[wyldwolf]

1. Kids grow up so fast, don't they?

[ancianita]

2. And, like all our candidates, they evolve.

[PatSeg]

7. I know I'm getting old

but a senior in high school in 2000? I'm not sure if that makes me feel much older or makes Buttigieg seem much younger.

[ancianita]

10. I hear ya. I was seven years away from retirement then.

[democrattotheend]

15. It made me realize he's practically my age

I read his essay when I was in high school and looking at sample essays when I entered the same contest. It was part of what made me support Bernie in 2016. I remember the essay very well but I just found out on Sunday who wrote it. I'm in my mid-30's and I've been used to having politicians be a lot older than me. The idea of having a president who was probably a senior when I was a freshman in high school is pretty exciting, though it's also making me feel my age a bit.

[Fresh_Start]

3. irrelevant since as he matured he realized he needed to run against bernie in 2020

no longer quite as young and naive

[ancianita]

5. Great. Hope he has a sense of humor about how all Democratic candidates evolve.

So should we all.

[RandySF]

4. Do we really want to get into what candidates wrote in their early years?

You might not.

[LexVegas]

6. Yeah...some essays are best left alone. nt

[ancianita]

8. I thought it was shockingly ironic and amusing.What candidates have written should be taken the way

this one is.

As a former high school English teacher, I see this as a product of its time, to a different audience of that day, by a young person who was thinking about admirable people.

Today, he himself has become one, a possible choice for any young student's essay today.

I like the essay, the thought Buttigieg put into it, and how it reverberates with youth today.

[KPN]

12. Haven't folks been doing that here for qwuite some time with Sanders?

Can't have it both ways -- unless you're the GOP apparently. And before anyone reacts, I am NOT SAYING that you are the same as the GOP.

[ancianita]

13. Or I might.

[msongs]

16. so will repubs be revisiting people's fantasies do ya think... nt

[Dem2]

9. Later he thought "hmmm, maybe I could do this as well"

Now he's competing head-to-head with his mentor.

[ancianita]

11. That interpretation works for me. Warren, too, could be said to have inspired someone who's been in

this year's campaign with her.

This party has such great intergenerational appeal because of how these human admirations across time come to show themselves in a democracy.

We have free speech. It inspires, offends, but mostly, it informs. We can see, looking back, how our writing can add to the quality of a body politic when considered as part of our history.

[democrattotheend]

14. I remember reading this essay when I was in high school

I entered the contest a few years after Buttigieg did (I didn't win though), and his essay was one of the samples on the foundation's website that I looked at before writing my essay. I have thought of that essay many times, as it was part of what inspired me to support Bernie in 2016. But until Sunday I had no idea who wrote it. That is really cool and it actually makes me think more highly of Buttigieg, as it is one of several indicators that he may be more progressive than what the media is portraying.