Pulaski County Special School District is proud to celebrate student achievement. Sylvan Hills High School senior Addison Thomas has been named the first-place winner of the 2025 Clinton Foundation Ideas Matter Scholarship Essay Contest, earning a $5,000 scholarship. Her essay was selected from more than 60 submissions by high school students statewide on how young Arkansans can improve civic health and inspire participation in their communities.
Thomas credited her teachers—especially English teacher Timothy Sisk—for helping her find her voice and focus. “He already knew, like, what I could do, and he knew how to push me and make me feel confident in what I needed to do,” Thomas said.
As she shaped her topic, Sisk encouraged Thomas to center the experiences of Black youth. “I was going to go with something really broad, but he told me, what if I did something with, like, Black youth? And so I had to ask myself, where could I find youth like me?” she said.
Thomas’s favorite line opens her essay, “Ideas Matter”:
“Arkansas’ state motto is one-of-a-kind: ‘Regnat Populus’—the people rule. No other state has one that explicitly puts the power into its citizens’ hands. Ironically enough, Arkansas ranked 51st in the nation for political participation in the 2020 presidential election, which makes us sound pretty hypocritical.”
The more than 3,000-word essay explores Arkansas history, including the Little Rock Nine, and outlines how today’s civic participation patterns formed—and how Thomas believes Black youth can become more engaged.
Writing and citing sources took weeks, and the first-place finish came as a surprise. "It feels really crazy because you don't ever think like you're going to be the one to do it because you don't want to be like, oh, I'm this good, and I'm going to do it, but you want to stay humble. So I was like, really grateful. And I thought, maybe this means I can like, write more, and I am a good writer...it shows me that if I believe in myself, that I'll be able to get through things that may be more difficult," Thomas said.
She also had a message for other students: “I think you should just always try, because you really never know. Sometimes you might actually surprise yourself. You are a lot better than you really think, because we’re our own biggest critics.”