May 1, 2024
By: Dwayne Page
Tennessee Secretary of State Tre Hargett Tuesday presented DeKalb County High School with the prestigious Anne Dallas Dudley Gold Level Award. The school earned this designation by registering 100 percent of its eligible students to vote.
Student Ambassadors Westin Wright and Dayanna Martinez received special recognition for helping their fellow Tigers go for gold through the support of DCHS Tigers faculty and staff like Principal Bruce Curtis and Government Teacher Ms. Debi Loring DePriest.
The Secretary of State’s office launched the Anne Dallas Dudley Award program for the 2023-2024 school year to promote voter registration among Tennessee high school students. High schools that registered 100 percent of eligible students earned the Anne Dallas Dudley Gold Level Award. High schools that registered at least 85 percent of eligible students earned the Anne Dallas Dudley Silver Level Award.
The award is named in honor of renowned Tennessee suffragist Anne Dallas Dudley, who helped lead the successful effort to ratify the 19th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. On Aug. 18, 1920, Tennessee became the 36th and final state needed to give women the right to vote.
“We created this award trying to recognize schools in taking the necessary steps to get their students registered to vote,” said Hargett. “This is one of 33 schools in the entire state that got 100% of its eligible students registered to vote. For all of us as Tennesseans and Americans its important to make our voices heard and the most fundamental way we do that in our form of society and our form of government is to get registered and go vote,” he said.
Also on hand for the occasion Tuesday at DCHS was State Representative Michael Hale, DeKalb County Administrator of Elections Dustin Estes, and Election Commission member Kim Luton.
“I am thankful to the Secretary of State and his office and the work they do, first of all for secured elections and doing this recognition for our high schools to encourage students to take part in the election process,” said Representative Hale.
Election Administrator Estes gave special recognition to Ms. DePriest who has helped supervise this student voter registration effort for several years. “I really appreciate Debi DePriest,” said Estes. She was one of my high school teachers. I registered to vote in her class and I appreciate everything she does for the students and for my office. It’s a tremendous help and I really appreciate her,” he said.
“The election commission also wants to recognize Ms. Debi,” said Luton. “She has been here for almost 30 years. She has been one of the best teachers around and has done an amazing job in getting these kids to vote”.
“I am a firm believer in voting,” said DePriest. “ We have always had great success as far as getting students to register. It doesn’t matter who they are we want them to register and they tend to do that in class under my supervision and we turn it into the election commission. We have had that going on for probably 25 years or more now,” she said.
All Tennessee public, charter/private school, and home school associations can participate in the Anne Dallas Dudley Award program.
The Anne Dallas Dudley Award is part of the Secretary of State’s civics engagement initiative to increase voter registration in Tennessee and prepare students to be actively engaged citizens. For more information about the Anne Dallas Dudley Award and other Tennessee Department of State civic engagement efforts, visit sos.tn.gov/civics.