The Hall at Patriot Place presented a Black History Month Essay Contest sponsored by Raytheon last month for students in sixth grade through high school. Glen Hills Elementary School had more than 20 sixth graders participate, with one lucky winner chosen to go on to the Patriot Place competition.

The contest was meant to encourage students to learn not just about African American history, but also about American history, something that Glen Hills has been working hard to do at the school level as well, with the help of Pleshette Vonner, this year's head of the Cultural Arts Committee.

"I think it is very important for our students to be aware and respectful of African American contributions as well as the contributions from all other groups that make up our great country and world," Vonner said.

The essay prompt called on students to write, in 700 words or less, about an influential African American.

The students who opted to participate were responsible for finding a person to research, doing the research and writing their essay, and much of the work was done during February vacation week. Some of the characters studied included Harriet Tubman, Daisy Bates, Guy Blueford Jr., Bessie Coleman, Phyllis Wheatly and Joe Lewis, to name a few.

"People chose to write about a wide variety of [historical figures] from the time of the Revolutionary War to other very notable figures," said Jane Treat, one of the two sixth grade teachers and one of the judges at the school level. "They were very enthusiastic about it.”

CJ Konturas knew he wanted to focus on someone from World War I, and found Corporal Freddie Stowers, an African American soldier from the war.

"He was a brave and honorable soldier and he was willing to give his life for his troops," Konturas said. "I believe that he really proved something."

Other students chose characters they had previous knowledge of but wanted to learn more about. Samantha Mastrati chose to do more in-depth research about Ruby Bridges.

"I chose her because I found her to be very interesting. I learned that she was an independent, bold character in history," said Mastrati.

Elizarose Machado chose someone with a name similar to her own.

"I chose Mary Eliza Mahoney for my research because I wanted a brave African American who helped to free the slaves. She was a nurse, and she started a hospital. She started out as a maid and a wash lady but she worked hard to become a nurse. A medal is named after her for nurses," Machado said.

Some students looked for someone with interests similar to their own. As a football player, Ben Grant was interested in finding someone from the world of sports to research for his essay.

"I found Frederick Pollard, the first African American to play football in college and pro. He played in the Rose Bowl and they changed the award for Male Coach of the Year to the Fritz Pollard Award," Grant said. "He was the first African American to stand up and play football and the first African American coach in the NFL.”

The students were surprised by many of the things they learned during their research.

"Bejamin O'Davis Jr. was someone I'd never heard of before. He was an inspiration to so many people because he was the first African American general in the Air Force. He was shunned at West Point for the entire four years he was there and instead of that stopping him, it drove him to finish," said Nick Poulos.

The judges at Glen Hills had a tough job ahead of them.

"They all did a wonderful job, it was very hard to judge," said sixth grade teacher Lynda Soscia.

"The quality of the writing was extremely high. It was unfortunate that only one could go," added Treat.

Vonner was also pleased with the level of enthusiasm for the contest.

"The students really put time and effort into their essays and the results show," she said.

Ultimately, an essay by Madalyn Redding was chosen by the judges, who judged the essays with the students' names removed for fairness. Redding chose to focus her essay on Maya Angelou, someone she didn't know much about before her research.

"My mom told me that she was really inspirational so I decided to look more into her. She was a really cool person," said Redding. "I learned that she was a really talented person, but people were so prejudiced that they didn't think she was good enough to be that talented. Even though they didn't think so, she still toured Europe as a dancer and she was really smart; she spoke five different languages. She later wrote about her childhood to show people that even though people were so unkind to her, she could push through that.”

Redding was surprised to hear she had won at the school level, and very excited. She now must wait to hear how she does in the Patriot Place contest.

Overall, Vonner believes that the contest has more benefit than the students even realize.

"I think the most important aspect of the research is, not only do they discover the differences which make us all unique, but they also have the opportunity to discover that as humans, we have more in common with each other than we think and those discoveries can create oneness and compassion which can bring us all closer as a human race," she said.

The top 25 winning essayists in the overall contest will attend a banquet and the top winner will receive tickets to a Patriots game. The judging will focus on how original and compelling the essay is (50 percent), the level of cultural understanding and research (35 percent), how well written and organized the essay is (10 percent), and the accuracy of spelling and grammar (5 percent). The contest was open to students from Connecticut, Massachusetts, Vermont, New Hampshire and Rhode Island in both public and private schools.