November 11, 2010 — Emmalee Mariner may be just a junior at Anderson County High School, but she can clearly define what patriotism means to her.
Emmalee earned first place in the Veterans Day Essay Contest at the Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory. She said patriotism is more than flag waving.
"A lot of people don't pay attention to events on the world stage or really anything outside of our daily lives," Emmalee said after receiving her prize during ORNL's Veterans Day ceremony. "Even in our daily lives, there is so much that we can improve. To start making our nation better, we have to start at home and we have to be begin in our own communities to strengthen them. We have to show the world that we are more than our government and that Americans do care about the people around us."
Emmalee is a member of the Anderson County High School Junior ROTC.
ORNL is managed by UT-Battelle for the Department of Energy's Office of Science.