Recognize youth for living out School Award Medal principles

Jaclyn Friedlander is a 1998 recipient of The American Legion School Award Medal. She received the award while in high school in Palatine, Ill., from the local American Legion Post 690. To this day, Friedlander, who lives in California and owns a company called Friends with Fin Entertainment, said she displays the medal in her home to live her life by the six principles listed on the medal – courage, honor, leadership, patriotism, scholarship and service.

The American Legion School Award Medal Program is a time for posts to award youth who display honorable character and good citizenship, and perpetuate the ideals of Americanism. The award is given to a boy and a girl in the graduating classes of elementary school, junior and senior high school, and college.

During the program’s first year in 1926, 145 students nationwide received medals. In 2016, 25,409 students received an American Legion School Award Medal, which was an increase of 268 medals from the previous year.

Candidates for the award are voted upon by a school’s faculty and members of the candidates graduating class through a secret ballot casting. The local Legion post involved with the school makes the final selection upon receiving recommendation from students and faculty. Each awardee receives a certificate and a medal with the six qualities listed on the face of the medal, as the back bears the Marine Corps motto, "Semper Fidelis" (always faithful).

With the 2017-2018 school year underway, Legion posts are encouraged to visit local schools to promote the program. An "American Legion School Award Medal Program" brochure is available at www.legion.org/publications.