Three students named Fredonia Essay winners

Published 7:30 pm Monday, March 11, 2019

FREDONIA — Three winners in the Fredonia Heritage Essay Contest received their awards at a recognition dinner at Fredonia Community House last Saturday evening.

Molly McGouirk, the first-place winner, received a check for $100. Second-place winner Madyson Fuzzell was awarded $60 and third-place winner Kylie Morgan won $40.

 The annual contest is conducted by Fredonia Heritage Association, with the topic based on the theme of the latest Fredonia Heritage Day. Participants in this year’s contest were asked to write about some prominent individual who has impacted their life. Judges were George Barrow, chairman of the essay project; his daughter, Crystal Barrow McKinney; Fredonia native Nicholas Fanning, who lives in Atlanta, and the newest judge, Shirley Aaron, a noted author and area resident.

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Fredonia Heritage Association Board Member J.J. Frickert opened the program by saying that the community’s 69th annual barbecue will be taking place on Saturday, April 27th and that Fredonia Heritage Day will be on Saturday, Nov. 2nd.

“The Community Clubhouse is 100 years old this year,” she said. “We are looking for old photos of this historic structure. We can copy them and return them to you. We want to display these images on Heritage Day.”

Frickert thanked a number of people who play critical roles in making Heritage Day a success. There’s a group of women, she said, who are in the Clubhouse before the sun comes up cooking food for the long day ahead. Ralph Banks of Horseshoe Bend National Military Park provides historic costumes volunteers wear during the day and Dantz Frazer is always dependable to have a group of Boy Scouts to help park cars.

“There’s so much going on during Heritage Day,” Frickert said. “It’s hard to take it all in. There’s lots of integral parts to the whole.”

The Festival has been recognized by the Alabama Bicentennial Commission as a prime event to see during the state’s bicentennial year.

George Barrow thanked the Five Points students for participating in the essay contest and the judges for picking the winners. “The students did a great job,” he said. “All of the essays were interesting and well written. All of these students are winners.”

The essays were judged on criteria that included focus and detail, creativity, organization and flow plus grammar and sentence structure. 

The students were asked to write about a person of prominence who exemplifies ideals of Black History Month.