photo by: Ogden Newspapers

Soon, 250 will be the number of the moment.

America will celebrate its 250th birthday on July 4. It is easy to envision a fireworks show (not in the Lawrence city limits, due to a ban) where there will be a 250-ball salute with Roman candles. It is possible to even imagine a cake (definitely not banned in Lawrence) with 250 candles on it.

Residents of the Lawrence area, though, have at least one other opportunity to experience the joy of 250: The Journal-World and our partner in the contest — the Farmers State Bank in Eudora — will be giving a $250 Downtown Lawrence gift card to one winner of a special Independence Day contest.

Beginning today, readers can enter a simple contest that requires only one thing: Your ability to express what America means to you. Readers can go to the website contests.ljworld.com/America-250. Once there, you can fill out a short contest form with your email address, your name and, most importantly, a description of up to 100 words describing what America means to you.

We will publish select answers in a special section of the July 4 print edition of the Journal-World. We also will put answers online at LJWorld.com for our digital readers. We will do a random drawing to select one entrant to receive a $250 gift card to be used at participating retailers in downtown Lawrence.

Don’t, however, wait until July 4 to express your feelings about America. The deadline to submit your answers is June 30. The winner will be announced in the July 4 edition of the newspaper.