Student Wins National AIDS Essay Contest

A Thousand Oaks High School student was named the winner Thursday of a national AIDS essay contest.

Kameron Lee Mitchell, the first student from California to win the annual contest, will receive a $2,000 scholarship for writing about her mother’s best friend, who died of complications related to acquired immune deficiency syndrome. “I didn’t care so much about the money. I just wanted to write the essay,” said Mitchell, who will attend UC San Diego in the fall.

Mitchell and two Oxnard High School students were among 20 finalists in the nation. About 200 entered the contest, organizer John Quinlan said.

The contest asked teens to write on why they should care about AIDS.

Mitchell answered the question in her essay by recalling fond memories of Alan, the man who helped raise her.

“Why do I care? I will care about AIDS as long as ignorance exists about the subject, and until all victims are treated by society with compassion,” she wrote.

“And I will care as long as 13-year-old girls cry themselves to sleep at night because AIDS took away a very special person, and only left a memory.”

Mitchell said she is interested in writing and educating people about AIDS.

Quinlan, chairman of the AIDS Collective, based in Long Island, N.Y., said Mitchell’s essay showed a personal reaction to AIDS. “This year’s graduating class is the first for which AIDS has been a fact of life,” Quinlan said. “They’ve never lived in a world without AIDS.”

Oxnard High students D’Andre L. Bims and Catherine Connell also were finalists in the running for nearly $4,000 in college tuition from the Don Hall Memorial Scholarship. Kheng Mei Tan of Lowell High School in San Francisco was the fourth finalist from California.

Don Hall co-founded People Taking Action Against AIDS, a 10-year-old nonprofit organization that raises money for AIDS education, research and care, co-founder Robert Starr said. Hall died in 1993.

“We felt it was vital to get a dialogue going in high schools, many of which don’t have AIDS prevention or education courses,” Starr said this week from the group’s Los Angeles headquarters. “We wanted to get kids talking about it in a personal way because most don’t listen to parents, teachers, the clergy or the government. They listen to each other.”