Audrey Elmes ’26 receives the DAR Good Citizen Award
On April 8, the local chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution announced that Hampton Roads Academy senior Audrey Elmes ’26 had, by unanimous vote, been selected as the 2026 chapter winner of the DAR Good Citizen Award. This honor recognizes Elmes’ incredible qualities of citizenship—leadership, dependability, patriotism, and service—as demonstrated in her home, school, and community.
HRA is immensely proud of her achievement, which exemplifies the entire Navigator student body’s commitment to character as well as academic excellence as a foundation for lifelong success. Elmes is the Academy’s first chapter winner since Phoebe Warren ’13, who received the award thirteen years ago.
Having already been designated as HRA’s nominee for the 2026 DAR Good Citizen Award, Elmes was invited to advance to the scholarship portion of the program, for which she submitted a personal statement and wrote a timed essay on the ways in which strong citizenship advances the project of American democracy. Based on this essay, she was selected for the chapter scholarship award from among five other exceptional student candidates from local public and private schools.
At the chapter award ceremony, Elmes read her reflections on the experience of phone banking as a volunteer for a political campaign and discovering unexpected common ground with voters she believed to be quite dissimilar from her.
“Our Founding Fathers and the courageous Patriots of the American Revolution created a democracy that requires unity to thrive,” she concluded in her essay. “Good citizens strengthen American democracy because they foster unity by bridging differences and inspiring empathy in even the most unlikely places.”
“Through understanding, democracy is revitalized and strengthened,” the Tufts University-bound senior told her audience. “The unity that blooms from understanding creates a democracy where every citizen is valued and can work together for a common goal.”
View Elmes’ full reading of her award-winning essay here and join us in congratulating this outstanding member of the Class of 2026!
