2004 Parent of the Year

Nov. 18, 2004
By Melisa Abbott
Staff Writer

Everybody has parents; tall ones, short ones, loud ones, and even embarrassing ones. Last week during parent’s weekend St. Ambrose held an online essay contest to pick the crème de la crème of student parents. SAU freshman Allison Sanderfield’s father was crowned “the best” at the Parent’s Weekend banquet held in the Cosgrove Hall cafeteria. This wasn’t the first time Sanderfield has written about her dad.

“Throughout high school, when we would have to do speeches about someone was admired, I would always write about my dad.” Sanderfield said. “My dad was always really good about going above and beyond what he needed to do.”

Despite the good news, Sanderfield didn’t let her father know the good news before he arrived on campus.

“I told him that there was a drawing to sit with the president and that we’d get to go to the banquet for free, so I filled it out.” Sanderfield said. “So the whole time he’s thinking that I won this drawing.”

Sanderfield’s father finally heard the good news when they brought Allison up on stage to read her winning essay.

“When they called my name, he was really surprised,” Sanderfield said. “His eyes kind-of welled up.”    

Sanderfield was glad that she won the contest, but there was an initial shock when she received the news.

“I was like, oh no, that means I have to get up in front of all these people,” Sanderfield said. “As much as I love him, I decided I would do it. He deserves this, but there’s going to be 350 people there.”

She didn’t get up on stage and read her essay cold though, she made sure she practiced a lot before the big event.

“I made them send my essay back to me to so I could practice it.” Sanderfield said. “It was bad enough because I thought I was going to be bawling when I got up there to read it. I knew my dad was going to cry, and that would make me cry.”

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