A Russell High School student has won the Kansas Masonic Public School State Essay Contest.

16-year-old Megan Hendrich was notified she won the award recently.

Students were asked to write about whom he or she believes to be the most prominent Kansas person in the past 150 years.

The RHS junior wrote about Great Bend native Jack Kilby.  Kilby was the inventor of the integrated circuit, more commonly known as the microchip.  He received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2000 and died in 2005.

Hendrich wins a $4,000 scholarship, which can be used at any Kansas public college.  She hopes to some day become a software engineer.