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Oratorical Contest. First-time contestant Benjamin Crosby won first place in The American Legion’s 79th annual Oratorical Contest finals in Indianapolis, April 17. Crosby, a homeschooled sophomore from Burlington, Wash., is the first youth from the state to win the Legion contest where high school youths speak on the U.S. Constitution. Sponsored by Memorial Post 91, Crosby emerged from a competitive field of 52 other American Legion department youth champions. Solomon Brown, a senior at Amanda Elzy High School in Greenwood, Miss., and sponsored by Post 200, earned a $16,000 scholarship with a second-place finish. And Cheyenne Mathews, a senior at Ketchikan High School in Alaska, and sponsored by Post 3, earned a $14,000 scholarship with a third-place finish.

Boy Scouts. The Department of Alabama helped a 12-year-old Boy Scout collect 679 retired U.S. flags to attain Eagle Scout rank. Read the story here.

Veterans health care. American Legion Past National Commander Joseph Frank, a T4-5 paraplegic due to injuries sustained in the Vietnam War, shared some of his experiences at the Hines VA Spinal Cord Center in Chicago and expressed his concerns with the Commission on Care’s proposed plan to privatize the VA. Read his story, "More than medicine to VA health care," here.