(ABC 6 News) – One Austin fourth-grader is being celebrated after winning the Hormel Food’s Martin Luther King Jr. Essay Contest.

“My research is that MLK Jr., he skipped grades and that he joined into a white college and he was brave enough to keep going, even though they might have kicked him out,” said Yvanna Lopez, Southgate’s first place winner.

—RELATED: Southgate student crowned winner of Hormel MLK essay contest —

The contest is held at 16 different schools across the country, with a winner selected from each school.

Each winner then goes onto a second stage of the competition, where three essays will be chosen as finalists.