Texas Students Win Grand Prize in C-SPAN Documentary Contest

Two Texas high school students earned a share of $100,000 this month from the cable channel C-SPAN for creating a documentary called "What it means to be American - Citizen accountability in Government."

Out of more than six thousand entries, these two were #1 nationwide!

C-SPAN said Mason Daugherty & Eli Scott, students at Imagine International Academy of North Texas in McKinney, were the grand prize winners in C-SPAN’s national 2019 StudentCam competition.

Tanner Fenton, Amy Pham and Zada Jones achieved a second prize for the entry "Until We Reach That Day."  They go to Frontier High School in Mansfield, TX.

Luke Lechman, Daniel Elliott and Cade Renfroe earned a third prize for the documentary "America: The Land of Opportunity!"  They also go to Frontier High School in Mansfield.

And Bernadette Montefalcon, Autumn Khuu and Lauren Sanfelippo earned an honorable mention for their video called "Immigrants & Citizenship."  They go to the same school as the grand prize winners, at Imagine International Academy of North Texas in McKinney.

Congratulations everybody!  Proving once again that Texas is full of talented thought-provokers.  Nice work and good luck with your next project.

Each year since 2006, C-SPAN has held the StudentCam contest for middle and high school students to produce short documentaries, and this year's theme was "What does it mean to be American? Choose a constitutional right, national characteristic, or historic event and explain how it defines the American experience."

Only nine percent of the 6,318 entries this year tackled the subject of immigration.  The most popular topics were First Amendment rights and equality/discrimination.  Overall, entries were up ten percent this year and only the best and brightest earned recognition.

There were 340 students across the country that won a total of $100,000, including one grand prize winner, four first prize winners, 16 second prize winners, 32 third prize winners, and 97 honorable mentions.

The 150 winning videos are up now at http://www.studentcam.org courtesy of C-SPAN.  Click HERE to view the video by Mason Daugherty and Eli Scott.

The new theme will be announced in July and the official competition launch for StudentCam 2020 will be at the beginning of the new school year.  We'll be watching.