Garrett Neese/Daily Mining Gazette Hannah Oommen, a ninth-grader at Houghton High School, advanced to the state Voice of Democracy competition, which will hold its awards banquet in Kalamazoo this weekend.

HOUGHTON — Hannah Oommen’s thoughts on the future of America earned her a trip downstate this weekend.

Oommen, a Houghton High School ninth-grader, will go to Kalamazoo for the state Voice of Democracy competition. The annual audio essay contest is sponsored by Veterans of Foreign Wars.

High school contestants record a three- to five-minute essay on the year’s theme. This year’s topic was “America: Where Do We Go From Here?”

“You’re graded on how imaginative it is, how well you tie everything together, and then how well you speak — if it’s clear, if it’s nice,” she said.

The topic shared its name with Martin Luther King’s final book, written a year before his death. Oomen used the subtitle — “Chaos or Community?” — to explore two potential options for America.

On the one hand is the country’s : deep political divisions, the pandemic, economic crisis, and racial prejudice. Yet she saw bright spots: technological advancement, progress in treating and destigmatizing psychological problems, and the soldiers, teachers, medical providers and others working to protect and improve their country.

“Each generation can make a choice,” she wrote. “May our generation choose empathy, compassion and equality, to fuel the change that will lead to community and not further chaos!”

Students worked on the project in class; submitting it to the contest was extra credit, Oommen said. Her essay evolved in both form and substance over several drafts.

“It took a couple weeks of waking up at 6 in the morning and randomly having an idea and jotting it down,” she said.

To prepare for recording, she read the essay aloud to her friends and family repeatedly. After 10 tries, she had the take she submitted for state.

Oommen hopes to win. But she also hopes to make new friends, as she did when going to state for Patriot’s Pen, the VFW junior high contest.

The winner of the national competition gets a $30,000 scholarship for their university, college or vocational/technical school.