Matthew Waltman ‘16 has won the 2015 National John F. Kennedy Profile in Courage Essay Contest for High School Students, beating 1,913 students who entered from all 50 states and Washington, D.C. The contest, which, according to the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum press release, encourages students to write about “an act of political courage by a US elected official … [and] is a companion program of the John F. Kennedy Profile in Courage Award™, named for Kennedy’s Pulitzer Prize-winning book, Profiles in Courage.” His essay featured former Greeley, Colorado, mayor Tom Selders, a Republican whose “refusal to ‘compromise away his principles’ on immigration cost him the [November 2007 re-]election,” as Matthew wrote.

Matthew was encouraged to submit by older sister Emily, a current sophomore at Stanford University who was a finalist in the 2012 Profile in Courage contest as a junior at Tenafly High School. He explained that one of the issues discussed during his Current Events course last fall was immigration reform: “I decided I wanted to tell the story of a politician who took a courageous stance on immigration reform, which led me to Tom Selders.”

Matthew was honored at the Profile in Courage Award ceremony at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum in Boston on May 3, also attended by his nominating teacher, Upper School English faculty member John Deal, and essay subject, Mayor Selders. He was also awarded $10,000 for his first-place essay, while Mr. Deal received a $500 John F. Kennedy Public Service Grant for school projects that encourage student leadership and civic engagement.

Appropriately, Matthew - who hopes to major in history in college - will be spending his summer as a Peer Mentor for the International Rescue Committee’s Refugee Youth Summer Academy in New York City, which assists newly arrived refugee youth and prepares them to succeed in the New York City public schools.