Kathryn Patterson from Abraham Baldwin Agricultural College Bainbridge received the prestigious William S. Coker Award for Best Graduate Paper at the 37th annual Gulf South History and Humanities Conference held recently in Pensacola, Fla.  Patterson is a junior history major from Bainbridge.

Dr. Dave Nelson, a professor of history at ABAC Bainbridge, said Patterson’s paper topped the work of several graduate and doctoral program students.

“I was fortunate enough to win this award in 2005 when I was a 33-year-old doctoral student,” Nelson said. “I never would have guessed that Kathryn would have been eligible for it, let alone win it. She did great.”

Titled “A New Battlefront, 1977: Florida and a Journey Toward a More Perfect Union,” Patterson said the paper is about Florida and the Equal Rights Amendment. It is based on archival research at the Florida State Archives.  Nelson served as Patterson’s mentor for the project.

Patterson is scheduled to present another paper in February at the Florida Conference of Historians in Lake City, Fla.