C-SPAN announced that students at Richland Northeast High School in Columbia are winners in C-SPAN's national 2019 StudentCam competition.

Darius Adamson, Gabrielle Greenley, and Darius Darby will receive $1,500 as second prize winners for their documentary, "Free Speech in America." Their winning video will air on C-SPAN at 6:50 a.m. ET and throughout the day on April 8.

Jamie Collins, Lo'Ren Suber, and Janiya Valentine will receive $750 as third prize winners for their documentary, "The Power of the Second Amendment."

Wade Fletcher and Caleb Daniels will receive $250 as honorable mentions winners for their documentary, "Born American: Birthright Citizenship and the 14th Amendment."

William Davidson, Keyanna Argumedo, and Yasmin Lee will receive $250 as honorable mention winners for their documentary, "Freedom of Speech."

Each year since 2006, C-SPAN partners with its local cable television providers in communities nationwide to invite middle and high school students to produce short documentaries about a subject of national importance. This year students addressed the theme, "What does it mean to be American? Choose a constitutional right, national characteristic, or historic event and explain how it defines the American experience."

In response, a record 6,318 students (a 10 percent increase over 2018) from 48 states and Washington, D.C., participated. The most popular topics among the 2,923 submissions included First Amendment rights (17 percent), equality/discrimination (13 percent), and immigration (9 percent).

"Over the last 15 years, we've had the privilege of hearing viewpoints on a wide variety of issues directly from young filmmakers across the country," said C-SPAN's Manager of Education Relations Craig McAndrew. "This year, students clearly stepped up their approach to deliver thoughtful and diverse responses to our competition theme, which reflect enormous time and effort put into the research and construction of their documentaries."

C-SPAN is funded by America’s cable television companies, whom also support StudentCam. In Columbia, C-SPAN is available locally through Spectrum.

"As a strong supporter of civic education to make communities stronger, Spectrum proudly partners with C-SPAN for its annual documentary competition, StudentCam. Each year, we are impressed and inspired by Columbia area students' insight and creativity tackling national issues through their short videos. This year's winners creatively portrayed what it means to be American," said Adam Falk, SVP, State Government Affairs for Charter Communications. "We at Spectrum are proud to join C-SPAN in congratulating the winning students at Richland Northeast High School."

These winners are among the 340 students across the country winning a total of $100,000, including one grand prize winner, four first prize winners, 16 second prize winners, 32 third prize winners, and 97 honorable mentions. This year, C-SPAN marks its 15th year of the competition and awards its 1 millionth dollar in StudentCam prize money.

The 150 winning videos can be viewed at http://www.studentcam.org and may be used in a broadcast with attribution to C-SPAN. To schedule an interview with one or more of the winning students, please contact Pam McGorry at [email protected].

The annual competition is sponsored by the C-SPAN Education Foundation. Videos were evaluated by a panel of educators and C-SPAN representatives based on the thoughtful examination of the competition’s theme, quality of expression, inclusion of varying sides of the documentary’s topic, and effective incorporation of C-SPAN programming.