1993-1994 Harry Singer Foundation National Essay Contest
Responsibility, Who Has It and Who Doesn't and What That
Means For The Nation
Teacher: Stephanie Harold
Hoonah High School, Hoonah, Alaska
1st Kathy Harris 
2nd Scott Osborne 3rd Charlie Wright
"To run
our every day lives by set limits takes a great deal of responsibility. ...Though these
limits seem like they are some sort of punishment, they are not. These limits are set to
help...and will even benefit us in the future."
Jay L. Erickson, Hoonah High School, Hoonah, Alaska
"Today
in ooour society, everybody wants to blame someone or something for their own faults. Say
for instance students fall asleep during class and flunk.... They could turn around
and claim that they have a chronic sleeping disease. People make up weird excuses just to
get out of something that was their fault in the first place."
Naomi Osborne,
"Liberty, or independence, cannot survive because of the little
things. ...It's the little things [that] hurt in the long run. Kinda like the Chinese
water torture; it doesn't hurt at first, but after a while, the drops of water start to
feel like pebbles, and then stones. We can't be ourselves when we let others run our
lives."
Jay Erickson, Hoonah High School, Hoonah, Alaska