First place in patriotism; boy wins state essay contest

Central Catholic seventh-grader Taylor Blanchard knows what it means to be patriotic, and he’s not the only one who thinks so.
Blanchard, 13, was selected as the winner of a statewide Knights of Columbus contest out of 863 entries that had already won on their district or regional levels, Central Catholic Principal Vic Bonnaffee said.
Seventh and eighth grade students from across the state entered the essay competition. Blanchard will present his essay at noon Saturday at the Knights of Columbus 430 building, located at 7070 Exchequer Drive in Baton Rouge.
The Knights of Columbus holds the essay contest each year, and this year’s essay topic was “How Do I Show My Patriotism to My Country,” said Kenny Duval, Knights of Columbus patriotic chairman for the Monsignor Jules S. Toups Assembly and past grand knight of the Holy Cross Knights of Columbus.
As a class assignment and for the contest, Blanchard wrote an essay about how the country honors veterans, Blanchard said. Blanchard wrote about the different ways that society honors military veterans through celebrating holidays, such as the Fourth of July, with memorials honoring their sacrifice and by simply thanking veterans for their service, he said.
He wrote the essay during the second quarter of the 2014-15 school year. Blanchard reflected on what the recognition means to him.
“It means a lot because my grandpa was in war, and also because I have to go and speak about my essay in Baton Rouge this weekend,” Blanchard said.
Blanchard “put a lot of excitement” into his essay, he said. Though Blanchard didn’t expect to win the statewide contest, Blanchard thought his essay was significantly better than any other essay he’d written. He also injected some humor into the essay, he said.
The essays consisted of 500 to 700 words each by seventh and eighth grade students. That assembly includes the Morgan City and Amelia areas, Duval said.
On the assembly level, Duval got a panel of five people with diverse backgrounds to judge the essays, he said. The panel judged about 50 essays from Central Catholic.
Blanchard won the assembly contest and then won the Houma-Thibodaux Diocese contest, Duval said. Each diocesan winner was entered into the statewide competition, he said. Competitions are also held above the state level, but winners have not yet been announced for those competitions, Duval said.
Essays were judged for content along with proper grammar.
All the essays Central Catholic students submitted were “great and nice to read,” Duval said.
Duval and the entire Knights of Columbus assembly are very proud of Blanchard for his accomplishment, Duval said.
When Duval received the call that Blanchard had won on the diocese level “you couldn’t believe how proud I was,” he said.
“And when the state called me, I was ecstatic,” Duval said.

This story was written by Zachary Fitzgerald of The Daily Review staff. Reach him at zfitzgerald@daily-review.com