The Foundation introduced the James Monroe Scholarship Award in the Spring of 2001 as part of a continuous effort to promote the life and legacy of James Monroe. Now in its sixth year, the James Monroe Scholarship Award has given over $10,000 to student-writers. The 2005-2006 topic was, "James Monroe: Guardian of a Free Hemisphere."

   On June 25, 2002 the Foundation in cooperation with the World Leaders Symposium Committee offered the first presentation in an Ambassador Briefing Series. It featured Her Excellency Ivon A-Baki, Ambassador to the United States from Ecuador. She presented a briefing on Ecuador and the Andean Region in the new millennium. Specifically, the presentation disscussed Ecuador's unique dollar based monetary system and the Andean Region Trade Initiative.

   Since then the program offered in July 2002, His Excellency Juan Jose Bremer, Ambassador to the United States from Mexico, who presented a brief on Mexico’s unique relationship with the United States and the NAFTA Trade Initiative.

   On January 2003, we welcomed His Excellency Javier Ruperez, Ambassador of Spain to the United States of America, who presented "Spain in the New Millenium."

   Coming soon: Briefing from the Ambassador of China.

   The Foundation offers an annual lecture given by a distinguished Monroe scholar. One of our most recent lectures comes from Dr. James P. Lucier. In Dispatches from the Revolution, Dr. Lucier discussed what we can learn from the Monroe papers.

   "The papers of President James Monroe contain an astonishingly broad collection of Monroe's on-the-scene public and private reporting of dramatic scenes from history, as he witnessed them. Monroe's tough and analytical prose was often dashed off in the heat of the battlefield, at the height of political conflict, or in the midst of diplomatic negotiations with a messenger waiting to take the missive to a packet ship about to set sail.

   In the Monroe papers one finds his intelligence report on troop movements sent to General Washington during the battle of Trenton; his account of a trip on horseback to Niagara Falls aborted by encounters with hostile Indians; his survey of the future site of Washington D.C. as a member of a committee appointed by the Continental Congress; his official report from Paris on the fall of Robespierre; his correspondence with Tom Paine and the Marquis de Lafayette while they were in prison; his orders and reports as Governor of Virginia and Commander-in-Chief during Gabriel's Rebellion; his official record of the day-to-day negotiations with the First Consul (Napoleon) and Talleyrand for the Louisiana Purchase; his night-time scouting mission to the Maryland tidewater as Secretary of State to observe the landing of British troops during the War of 1812; his account of the burning of Washington; and, as President, his three-way correspondence with Jefferson and Madison about the drafting of what came to be called the Monroe Doctrine."

   The 15th Annual James Monroe Lecture was held on Tuesday, October 29, 2002 at 7:30 p.m., in the Great Hall of the Mary Washington College Campus Center in Fredericksburg, Virginia.

   Dr. Jon Kukla, Executive Vice President & CEO of Red Hill, The Patrick Henry Foundation, presented:

   The free presentation served as the debut of the Foundation's celebration of the Louisiana Purchase Bicentennial that officially began nationwide in January 1st of 2003.