EPWORTH, Iowa -- A Seton Catholic School student will stand before hundreds of thousands of people in Washington, D.C., on Monday to be honored for her thoughtful essay against abortion.

Becca Kennedy, 14, also will be introduced at the 30th Annual Rose Dinner later that day for winning top honors in the National March for Life Education and Defense Fund Essay Contest.

Kennedy is an eighth-grader at Seton's St. Joseph Center in Farley. In previous years, she and other students drew posters and created poems for the contest as part of their class work. This year, she decided to write an essay on her own and submit it with a handful of fellow students. That was months ago, and Kennedy had forgotten about her essay until she got a call last week.

"It was a man from the March for Life telling me my essay was chosen for first place. I was shocked," she said.