2026 college student essay contest winners

The Freedom From Religion Foundation is proud to announce the 12 winners and eight honorable mentions of the 2026 Kenneth L. Proulx Memorial Essay Contest for Ongoing College Students. FFRF has paid out a total of $18,450 in award money to this year’s college contest winners.

Currently enrolled college students (up to age 24) wrote on the topic of “Why President Trump is wrong that ‘you just can’t have a great country if you don’t have religion.’”

This contest is named for Kenneth L. Proulx, one of FFRF’s most generous benefactors, who died in 2019.

The $1,000 prize for sixth place in the ongoing college competition is generously endowed by actor and FFRF Lifetime Member Mr. Madison Arnold. Madison, who is 90, has given a $30,000 endowment as a living bequest, what he calls a “pre-quest.”

Essay contest winners, their ages, the colleges or universities they are attending and the award amounts are listed below. (FFRF seeks to distribute essay scholarship monies to a higher number of students, so ties are not regarded in the typical fashion, meaning there are often more than 10 winners among the top 10.)

FIRST PLACE

Artem Khaiet, 21, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, $3,500.

SECOND PLACE

Astrid Jepson, 21, UCLA, $3,000.

THIRD PLACE

Alexander Safranak, 19, Bradley University, $2,500.

FOURTH PLACE

Hendrick Ventura Andeliz, 24, American Military University, $2,000.

FIFTH PLACE

Natalie Sowers, 19, Allegheny College, $1,500.

SIXTH PLACE (tie)

(MR. MADISON ARNOLD AWARD)

Whitney Brown, 19, Hutchinson Community College, $1,000.

Aaron Love, 19, University of Kentucky, $1,000.

SEVENTH PLACE

Sean-Patrick Dulcio, 20, Florida A&M University, $750.

EIGHTH PLACE

Ava Jackson, 19, Howard University, $500.

NINTH PLACE (tie)

Amelia Keefe, 20, University of Central Florida, $400.

Anh Nguyen, 20, Georgia Tech, $400.

TENTH PLACE

Kevin Xiong, 21, Baylor University, $300.

HONORABLE MENTIONS ($200 each)

Alfred Conway, 19, George Mason University.

Katherine Chow, 19, New York University.

Mason Gutierrez, 19, Northern Arizona University.

Rowen Hamilton, 21, University of Texas.

Jeremiah Jefferson, 20, College of Wooster.

Olayide Ogunse, 20, Minnesota State University, Mankato

Sapien Saldivar, 20, University of Texas.

Aimee Vega, 20, Purdue University.

FFRF thanks Lisa Treu for managing the details of this and FFRF’s other student essays competitions. We also would like to thank our volunteer and staff judges, including: Dan Barker, Anne Bendixen, Craig Crispin, Annie Laurie Gaylor, Susan Gould, Robert Holley, Sammi Lawrence, David Malcolm, Andrea Osburne, Rose Mary Sheldon, PJ Slinger, Jennifer Vines and Matthew Woodruff.

FFRF has offered essay competitions to college students since 1979, high school students since 1994, grad students since 2010, one explicitly for students of color/first in the family since 2016 and a fifth contest for law students since 2019.