Northwestern State University recently welcomed a young New Iberia author to its annual Conference on Louisiana Studies to honor her and her essay on being Cajun in South Louisiana.

Morgan Bulliard is a 15-year-old sophomore at Westgate High School and winner of the 2009 Louisiana High School Essay Contest. Bulliard won first place for her essay “Mais Sha, I’m Cajun!” written last year while she was still a freshman in Gifted English class.

Bulliard traveled with her family Saturday to Northwestern State University to read her essay before the assembled members from the Louisiana Folklife Center, the Folklife Society of Louisiana, the NSU Writing Project and the NSU College of Liberal Arts.

Essay winner Morgan Bulliard, center, a sophomore at Westgate High School, is flanked by Shane Rasmussen, left, with the Louisiana Folklife Center and Lisa Abney, dean of the College of Liberal Arts at Northwestern State University. Advertisement

Bulliard said she enjoyed the trip and the ceremony and was glad she had the opportunity to travel for the event.

“It was nice,” she said. “We went to see the campus and the town because we got there an hour early.” Bulliard said.

It was her first visit to the area, she said, and she liked the campus and the city of Natchitoches as well, which she described as “antique.”

“The essay started off as an assignment in my English class, from a prompt that asked ‘What does your Louisiana heritage mean to you?’ ” Bulliard said.

The three main themes she chose to develop within her essay were music, food and family.

In addition to the honor of reading her essay at the conference, the sophomore was also awarded a $150 check and will be published in the Northwestern State University journal.

“She is a very talented writer,” said Cheryl Freyou, who submitted the essay as part of the class’ submission to the competition as Bulliard’s English teacher last year.

Though she knows Bulliard is an exceptional writer, Freyou said she did not know what to expect from the contest entry.

“I was hopeful,” Freyou said.

“I had entered all my students. This (writing) prompt was one that they had developed especially for this contest.”

Bulliard said she used to love to write, and still does, but does not have the time for it because of so many things going on right now. She wrote much more in the past, such as poems and short stories, but now she finds she has much less free time to write, although when she does she has her preferences.

“Whether I enjoy writing now depends on what it is,” Bulliard said.

“I still like to write short stories, fiction, imaginative kinds of things.”