By Kimberly Hopson
L’Observateur

RESERVE – The St. John the Baptist Parish School Board presented three exceptional children in the school district with the district-level Student of the Year awards recently.
In addition to the honor, the students each received a Kindle Fire, sponsored by Reserve Telecommunications Co., recognizing the academic accomplishments and spirit of community and leadership displayed by each of the honorees. The winners were Jenna Beber, 10, and James Perriloux, 13, from John L. Ory Magnet School, and Darren Davis, 17, from East St. John High.
Eighth-grader Perriloux explained the extensive Student of the Year application process: “To be the Student of the Year, you had to fill out an application. I went online. And then we had to do a form for community leadership, service, as in what have we done to help our community and citizenship in our community, we had to fill out forms for those things. And then I had to make a portfolio with my biographical sketch, include some pictures of my awards and put all my LEAP and iLEAP scores,” he said.
Perrilloux is a very active young man — he is a team leader for the Young Marines and president of his school’s math club. In his spare time, he enjoys hunting, fishing, playing baseball and reading. The youngster is also quite the gentleman — he said that he would be giving his new Kindle away to someone special a woman in his life.
“I already got a Kindle Fire for Christmas. I’m going to be nice and give it to my mom,” he said.
Beber is a fifth-grader with a fun-loving personality. Beber was this school year’s 100th day princess, and she also plays softball and is in active Girl Scouts. The 10-year-old said that her parents were equally ecstatic to hear about her win.
“Whenever I won the school competition, I called my dad and said ‘Hey Dad, guess what?’ and I said ‘I just won student of the year!’ And then he goes ‘Aw, really?’ and then he started crying and said ‘Man, you’re making me cry!’ And then my mom came and had lunch with me that day,” she said.
Beber gives back to her community every year by holding a food drive she calls the Super Bowl. Her mother helped her get started, but the charity initiative was all her own idea.
“Every year I hold a food drive that I like to call the Super Bowl because it’s in January. I collect cans of food and other items like ramen noodles to bring to the St. John Ministry of Care. In 2010, I collected 600 cans of food and other items. And in 2011, I collected 800. One day I walked in my mom’s room and said ‘Mom do you know of any charities I can do?’ and she looked it up on the computer and found the idea to do a super bowl. And I said ‘That’ll work.’ I’ve been doing it ever since.”
Davis is another future “pillar of the community” to look out for. The high school senior participates in Future Business Leaders of America and Beta Club in addition to playing the tuba in his school’s band and playing soccer, track and football. Davis said he doesn’t really have many hobbies because of his lack of spare time. Davis has maintained a 3.5 grade point average throughout his high school years.  
“Outside of school is pretty much the same thing as inside of school. I don’t really have outside time…I’m in so many clubs and so many sports that my whole life basically revolves around school,” he said, without regret. “But anything not related to school? I sing a little bit. It’s not something that I’m on stage with or anything, just something that I like to do.”
Davis had more positive news before receiving the district-level Student of the Year award. Earlier this month, both he and his brother signed football scholarships with excellent universities. Davis signed with Morehouse College, a prestigious historically black university. His brother Leonard signed with Tulane. Davis said his family held a party to celebrate all the announcements. The party ended up being a bit larger than expected, however.
“That kind of fell within the same few days, so we rolled it all together and celebrated that at one time. One hundred fifty people … it was meant to be something smaller than what it was. They say Davis, and everybody comes running,” he said. When asked if he was popular, Davis replied, “I guess so. Or maybe my brother’s the popular one. One of us is popular.”
Davis feels comfortable talking to people and feels that his interview skills are what won him the award. Davis said it brings him great joy to be able to be an inspiration to people around him. He hopes to use his talents to become a math or social studies teacher one day, and he eventually plans to be a superintendent. He’s also putting the Kindle Fire to good use.
“When I got in from the basketball game at 2:30 in the morning, (I used it to find) a scholarship application while I was traveling up to Monroe, and I filled that out. I made sure I jumped on that one. I was surprised. Eighth grade year, I basically just got a plaque for being student of the year, and that was it. But I’m happy. They’re getting technology savvy with their awards now,” he said.