Kathryn I. Heil Wins Home Owning' Essay Contest for Imperial Valley School Chitdren

First prize of $25.00 in the essay contest for Imperial Valley sthool children on the subject, "Why Father_and Moth-er Should Own Our Own Home," \Mas won by Kathryn I. Heil, age 13, a student at the Wilson School, El Centro. Second prize, $15.0o was won by Aletheia Osburn, 16, of the Brarvley Union high school. Other winners and the prizes they won are: third, Faye La Dene Kerr, $1O.0O; Josephine Brown, $5.00; Rosemary Daniel, $5.0O; Ocie Eveiett, $5.00; and Oliver D. Faulkner, $5.00.

The contest was conducted under the auspices of the 'Better Homes in America Campaign for El Centro, o{ which Mrs. O. G. Horne is chairman, and sponsored by the El Centro Chamber of Commerce, El Centro Junior Chamber of Commerce, Building Service Bureau, lmperial Valley Master Plumbers' Association, Imperial Valley Hardware Co. and the Imperial Valley Loan Co.

The judges were: Rev. Charles Wilson Baker; J. P. Green, Editor Imperial Valley Press, and Carlton D. Joy, Editor Imperial Valley Farmer. The contest was arranged for by W. W. Wheatley, secretary of the Imperial Valley Lumbermen's Association.

Miss Heil's prize winning essay follows:

"There is nothing more permanent in life than a home. It has been said that the home is the cradle of civilization, and the foundation of happiness. Think of the joy we can have in our home in the future. A place of warmth and comfort, where rve can entertain our friends as we grorltr up, where the mellow, happy. years can settle about us like a beneficent cloud amidst pleasant and secure surroundings.

"In the early times of civilization the people had homes and implemenis, but they were not as convenient and modern as oufs.

"If our fathers and mothers own our home rve have an exiellent chance to get a good education. Boys and girls whose mothers and fathers are continually traveling are deprived of a chance of education ; they no more than get started to one school when they have to change.

"The man and wife who have saved suffiqient money to build a house and pay cash for it are greatly to be envied. By far the majority of house-owners build on borrowed mone1r') and it frequently takes years before the property paises entirely into their hands' But in the meantime while they have been paying for their homes, they have been living in them.

"They have been rearing families in their olvn homes and by this example they have planted the seeds of thrift, so that their children may reap some of the benefit'

"A home owned by our parents can kindle many helpful human qualities such as ambition, responsibility, economy, resourcefulness, pride and love. Therefore, all parents should strive to own their own homes for the welfare of their children."