MONTEGO BAY, St James — In what is being described as a historic win for this parish, grade six Corinaldi Avenue Primary student Jaya-Lee Dryden has emerged as national winner of the Lay Magistrates’ Association Essay Competition. This is the first time a student from St James has claimed the top prize.

Dryden’s essay was in the top six for the parish and eventually beat out 39 others submitted at the national level.

“Honestly, it’s been a dream. I didn’t really expect to win because when my teacher picked me for the essay competition, I was really happy but I didn’t think I had the potential to do it,” she said.

Essays explored the topic of age appropriateness of children’s clothing, a topic with which Dryden felt comfortable.

“I knew it was something easy because it’s an obvious thing to write on. Students should be comfortable in what they are wearing and it should be appropriate so that it can show off the right impressions that we are kids. We are just kids; we can’t dress like big people,” she declared.

For her efforts she walked away with a trophy and $40,000 at the national level. At the parish level, where she topped the six best, she received $6,000. Second- and third-place students from the parish also received cash grants during a recent event hosted by the local chapter to honour students who participated at both levels of the contest.

Chapter President Suzette Ramdani-Linton explained how the competition works.

“Every year the national body has a competition. There are 14 parishes that participated and in St James we had 34 students who actually came here and sat at the parish library under exam conditions and wrote their essays,” she explained.

“After their essays were written, we had persons like teachers who would have helped in terms of marking the essays and the top six were submitted to the national body,” added Ramdani-Linton.

She views Dryden’s win as a crowning moment of her tenure.

“It is remarkable for me as this is my third and final year as president so I am really proud to have one of our students accomplish that,” she told the Jamaica Observer.

“Our students usually place in the top 12 but this is the first time we’ve had a student from this parish taking the top prize. This is a big deal for us,” Ramdani-Linton continued.