At the recent Texas State Historical Association (TSHA) conference in Fort Worth, Northeast Texas Community College honors student Noah Griffin won first place in the Caldwell Award competition for the best essay in Texas History.† He received a $400 award for the honor, topping all peers in the college/university, freshman/sophomore level.† Steve Cure, the Director for Educational Services of the TSHA, remarked that there was an especially crowded field of entries this year.
Griffin is the son of Joy and Dr. Stephen Griffin from Pittsburg, Texas. He is the brother of Isaac Griffin, who also achieved many honors while a student at NTCC.
Griffin?s award winning essay, ?Morris Sheppard, Rhetorical Strategist of Prohibition,? concerned the oratorical techniques that helped Sheppard to win one of the most unlikely victories ever in American politics.† Sheppard, who was born in what is now Naples, Texas, and became a Senator from Texas, authored the 18th amendment to the Constitution, outlawing the sale and manufacture of alcohol.
Most history books on prohibition grant only a few allusions to Sheppard.† Griffin?s essay showed how Sheppard was the ranking political leader of prohibition, an astute speaker who brought together a winning coalition.
?What I find exciting about Griffin?s work is that he avoided the ?Sheppard-was-another-old-time-religious-zany? point of view of many authors, and dealt with the reasons for† Sheppard?s remarkable success,"†NTCC Honors Director, Dr. Andrew Yox, said. "Griffin documented how Sheppard ?arrested attention? and ?moralized politics? in ways that made prohibition seem very reasonable to Americans of his time.† This was indeed a feat for a nation that some claimed was spending more on alcohol than on education in the late-nineteenth century.?
Griffin also played several roles in the NTCC Honors film on Morris Sheppard that can be accessed by typing ?Modern Icarus? on YouTube.
