Honorable Mention: Schmidt's children, Katie, Kelli and Micheal, amid a hillside of wildflowers near Gorman, Calif.

photo by:Jim Schmidt, of Valencia, Calif.

My America

The Stars & Stripes, our national parks and the next generation best exemplify America and the American spirit based on the hundreds of images entered in American Profile’s “My America” Photo Contest.

The most popular themes were the American flag, breathtaking landscapes and adorable children, often bedecked in red, white and blue. Readers also submitted photographs of Main Street parades and Fourth of July fireworks, wheat fields and wildflowers, bald eagles and Boy Scouts, rustic churches and rusty steel girders from the World Trade Center.

Picking the winners from the hundreds of entries was a challenge, but ultimately staff members selected a photo of a red barn in rural Vermont, submitted by Harold Ogden of Tahlequah, Okla., as the first-place winner. He will receive $500. “I love to travel and photograph,” says Odgen, who entered three other scenic photos selected as honorable mentions.

Mary L. Galer, of Hillsboro, Ill., was awarded second place and a $250 prize for her photo of Henry Patterson, 4, giving his dad, Sgt. Greg Patterson, a welcome-home hug after a yearlong deployment in Iraq.

The $100 third-place prize was awarded to Carrie Brown of Sidney, Neb., who submitted a photograph of fireworks exploding over Mount Rushmore National Memorial in South Dakota.

Other honorable mentions were awarded to Katie Street of North Port, Fla.; Deb Ward of Glen Lyon, Pa.; Kathy Merucci of South Lyon, Mich.; Melvin Suhr of Storm Lake, Iowa; Jim Schmidt of Valencia, Calif.; and Tammy Lanham of Nicholasville, Ky. Watch the slideshow above to see all of the winning photographs and honorable mentions.

first appeared: 9/3/2006