Students call for change during MLK program

The message of Monday’s 19th Annual Youth Oratorical Contest wasn’t just one of reflection and celebration of the life of Martin Luther King Jr.

It was a call for change — and that message was heard loudly and clearly by the hundreds of attendees at Hylton Memorial Chapel in Woodbridge.

Potomac High School student Lauren Coleman and the five other local finalists hammered home the contest theme, “The Urgency of Now,” elaborating on the famous quote first said by King and repeated by President-elect Barack Obama.

From the tanking economy, the downtrodden real estate market, the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan to the plight of the war weary Congolese, no topic was off-limits for these eloquent and powerful young speakers. After repeating the now-famous Obama statement “Yes, We Can,” Coleman asked the crowd “Now what?” during her fiery sermon.

Debbie Bryant, a native of Charleston, S.C., who was visiting friends in Virginia for the inauguration, was impressed with the students’ passionate speeches and fervor for something other than sports.

So was her friend Krystal Scofield. The Colonial Heights resident attended the event, in part, to see family friend Brianna Francis perform as a mime during one of the many songs by the MLK Community Choir.

Osbourn Park student Seth Opoku-Yeboah took home first place honors both in the high school competition judged on Jan. 8, as well as the competition held Monday between himself, Coleman and Alice Gymafi of Hylton High School.

In the middle school competition, Kourtney Ellis of Porter Middle School bested both Avin Khera of Benton and Makaila Davenport of Stonewall. He also took home first place in the Jan. 8 competition.

Representatives from the various schools — 27 in all — received medals and various amounts in savings bonds. Mayela Milian-Hernandez of Manassas Park Elementary School won first place in the writing contest held for fourth- and fifth-graders.

The two-plus hour event started with several Vaughan Elementary students performing a dramatization titled “The Dream Meets the Dreamer,” in which King and his wife, Coretta Scott, come down from heaven to greet Obama during his presidential acceptance speech in Chicago on Nov. 4.

Fourth-grader Alonzo Smith played Obama, while fourth-grader Nia Jones and fifth-grader Jared Austin played Scott and King, respectively.

A handful of local politicians was on hand for the festivities, including newly-elected U.S. Rep. Gerald E. Connolly, D-11th. During a brief speech that ended with him giving inauguration tickets to all of the contestants, Connolly joked that he better be wary of all the young talent in the room.

That statement could have applied to any of the performers Monday, especially violinist Daniel Davis, a resident of South Carolina who interned at the famed Julliard School of Music in New York City last summer and rocked the audience with his musical skills and showmanship during a montage titled “I Have a Dream.”

The audience gave Davis two standing ovations before he departed for a pre-inauguration celebration Monday at the Washington National Cathedral.

Staff writer Kipp Hanley can be reached at 703-878-8062.