Jefferson Island Elementary School sixth grader Chloe Willis and teacher/project advisor Margaret Simon celebrate Willis’ win of a national student research and documentary award.

A Jefferson Island Elementary School student won $1,000 in an international student competition last week.

Chloe Willis was given a Discovery Award in the Outstanding Elementary School Project category after submitting a documentary containing research about her great-grandfather. The documentary shared the achievements of the Rev. T.J. Jemison, a civil rights activist who helped organize the bus boycott that led to the passing of Ordinance 222 by the Baton Rouge City Council, which changed the segregated seating policy on city buses.

Willis began working on the project in February of 2020 and submitted the documentary in July. Her advisor for the project, Margaret Simon, said the project included a lot of research and video-making knowledge that both she and Willis learned while working on the submission.

“The premise was to research and do a documentary on an unsung hero, someone who has affected the future and made a difference and didn’t get the attention they should have,” Simon said.

The Discovery Award is an international student competition that honors creative research projects that uncover the stories of positive role models/unsung heroes, whose impact on history remains largely unknown. In all, LMC awarded seven prizes totaling $14,000 to elementary, middle school and high school students.

Simon said Willis, who she has been teaching since the first grade as part of Willis’ ELA block for gifted education, mentioned to her one day in passing that her great-grandfather knew Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

When Willis was in fifth grade, Simon received a newsletter from the Louisiana Endowment of the Humanities that talked about the Baton Rouge Boycott of 1953. The tactics used in the Baton Rouge boycott were applied successfully by King to bus boycotts in Montgomery, Alabama, and elsewhere.

“The head of the boycott’s name was T.J. Jemison and he was in a picture with Martin Luther King Jr.,” Simon said. “I asked Chloe and texted her mom to confirm who it was.”

Although Jemison died when Willis was about 3, Simon said the project was an opportunity for her to learn more about her family.

Simon said the project was a lot of work. It included conducting an interview with Willis’ grandfather, gathering pictures and even obtaining video footage from WBRZ in Baton Rouge.

Technological work such as voice overs were also a part of the project, and Chloe had to write a 500 word paper as well.

“We started in mid-February and she worked on it until the last day of school and beyond,” Simon said.

Chloe, now in the sixth grade, learned in a Zoom interview surrounded by a room full of family and teachers that she had won in the elementary category. Iberia Parish Schools superintendent Carey Laviolette and Jefferson Island Principal Niles Romero were in attendance along with family members.

“I was really surprised,” Chloe said. “I wasn’t sure about it because there were a bunch of talented people in the contest. I was very excited.”