By David Fleet
Editor
Goodrich — On Jan. 15, the Genesee Chapter Daughters of the American Revolution recognized the annual winners of the Good Citizen awards at the Linden Free Methodist Church, 13274 Linden Road, Linden.
This year Goodrich Senior Jack Foreback was among 10 Genesee area students awarded who exhibit the qualities of good citizenship in their homes, schools, and communities.
Requirements for the students selected as the school’s DAR Good Citizen include dependability, service, leadership and patriotism. In addition, an essay is required for the award.
The focus of this years essay was, “Our American Heritage and Our Responsibility for Preserving it.”
The essays answered the question in two hours, within 550 words: How do the qualities of a good citizen dependability, service, leadership and patriotism help support our nation.
Foreback, 18, is a member of the GHS National Honor Society, a Commended Student in the 2023 National Merit Scholarship Program and is a member of the Martian Varsity Baseball Team. In 2022, the Martian-nine made it to the MHSAA State Final Four with a 37-3 record.
Jack is the son of Bob and Jami Foreback of Atlas Township.
Carol Powers is a member of the Genesee chapter DAR.
“The Genesee Chapter DAR is pleased to sponsor this yearly contest which showcases the many hard working talented seniors in Genesee County High Schools,” said Powers, an Atlas Township resident.
“This award, created in 1934 to encourage and reward the qualities of good citizenship, is widely recognized as a very high achievement and can be used on resumes’ and applications.”

Our American Heritage and Our Responsibility for Preserving It

By Jack Foreback

Q: “How will the essential actions of a good citizen (dependability, service, leadership and patriotism) meet the challenges that America faces in this decade?”

It is impossible to know the future, but that has never stopped us from trying. Since the Greeks first looked toward the skies, and proclaimed the stars had meaning; since the oracles first tried their hands at divination. We have always been looking toward the future. At times it may appear bleak, some say that it is now, and will be forever. But this has never stopped us from trying. We see a light in the future, and we find it, in ourselves. In our own good actions. Our faith. It is through this manifestation of the moral self, evident in our past actions, that we carry ourselves closer towards a moral future.

Often to predict the future, we must look at the past. Whether it’s predicting the weather based on yesterday’s (which doesn’t always work in crazy Michigan), or knowing that if you push a vase off the counter, it’ll fall (my cat still needs to learn that one). Past events can tell us a great deal about what’s coming in the future. For our country, that means looking back at how our people have already responded to dealing with the hardships of this decade. And it can only serve as a good omen. As COVID-19 raged across the country, plaguing homes and lives, healthcare and infrastructure workers stepped up to the plate. They serve as a perfect example of the American citizen: reliable, caring, and hardworking. Shouldering the brunt of the pandemic, healthcare workers had to work harder than ever before in their noble pursuit to save lives. Thanklessly, countless hours a week, they trudged away; even putting themselves at risk, never managing to give up or break down. Even as hospitals overflowed, they carried on. It’s inspiring. But it’s also just a shadow toward realizing what is truly important. That it is not just them.

The indomitable human spirit, the American will, lives in us all. Inspiring us to create good. It’s what propelled the great actions of healthcare workers during the pandemic, and it is what will inspire us to meet any challenge that comes out way. In every citizen, in every heart still beating red, I see the ability, feel the capacity of the American spirit that we have always had. To work every day like your life depended on it, to be a good citizen, to rise up and help your fellow man. This spirit, this ability to rise to the occasion is what has carried us as a nation throughout time. And it is what shall carry us again. We rose to the challenge of the moon, we rose to the exploration of the stars, so we shall not fall in the coming years, on only a planet. If the force of our people’s will continues to thrive, continues to be free, then there is nothing that can conquer us. If the ideals of truth, honesty, and freedom continue to hold us all together, truths as the invisible backbone of America. If we have these truths, hold them, self-evident in our hearts, allowing them to inspire us to rise to the occasion once more, just as those healthcare workers, astronauts, those scientists before us. Then we can strain, we can bend, but the American spirit, whatever challenge it may face, will not break.