Trey Jamison ’21 Awarded the 2021 Kevin A. Nelson, II Creative Writing Award

Trey Jamison ’21 was recently awarded the 2021 Kevin A. Nelson, II Creative Writing Award by Archbishop Carroll High School. The award was established in 2005 and is named for Kevin A. Nelson, II, an avid poet and writer and a 2003 Archbishop Carroll graduate who also attended Gonzaga for his first two years of high school. After high school, Kevin went to Xavier University in New Orleans for one year and passed away in Maryland in 2004.

The award, which comes with a cash prize, includes a letter about Trey and his poetry written by Gonzaga English Teacher Mr. Joe Ross, who also taught Kevin Nelson. Here's an excerpt:

Trey is an excellent student, athlete, writer and poet. He is also a young writer who has faced significant challenges in the last few years of his life. With his mother’s early onset Alzheimer’s Disease, Trey and his father served as her primary caregivers. While Trey did not let this affect his school work, it did change and form him from the inside. His mother, Kimmarie Jamison, died on April 2, 2020, as Trey was a Gonzaga junior. We had just begun online learning and so he had to face his mother’s death in a very unusual way, without the presence of friends. 

But, here’s the remarkable thing Trey did: he wrote. He wrote reflections about his mother and about his grief. He also wrote poems. All through his senior year, and especially during his English IV Creative Writing – Poetry class, Trey wrote poems honoring his mother and exploring his own inner world. He showed us how to use poetry for healing. Trey would be the first to say that his grieving is not over. But I think he’d also say that poetry helped him in a time of deep loss and that it continues to help him. In this way, he is just like Kevin.  

I am grateful to honor Kevin’s memory and at the same time, lift up this young writer, poet, student, athlete, Trey Jamison, who used his writing to honor and remember his mother, Kimmarie Jamison. Trey is the student and writer this award was meant to honor.

Congratulations Trey!