SAYRE — Sayre High School Junior Sophia Hyatt is set to follow in the steps of a local World War II veteran, embarking on a special research project that will take her to the beaches of Normandy as she learns about D-Day, and spotlights a local fallen soldier.
Hyatt and teacher Jennifer Ameigh were selected as one of 15 student-teacher teams for the Albert H. Small Normandy Institute, an intensive study program of the Normandy Campaign of 1944 through George Washington University.
The pair will travel to Washington, D.C., and then to France for special courses and research presentations in June.
Hyatt will be tasked with two projects. One is to create a briefing paper on a major topic about the Normandy Campaign, which she will present in France.
The other is to identify a soldier from or near their hometown buried in the Normandy American Cemetery at Colleville-sur-Mer, working with archivists to examine historical records and conducting local research to piece together a biography of the soldier.
That biography will be given to the American Battle Monuments Commission to be held at the cemetery’s archives upon completion.
Lorenzo Taylor of Elmira was chosen by the pair as the veteran to spotlight.
Taylor was killed in the early days of the invasion as a paratrooper behind enemy lines at the age of 24. He previously worked for American LaFrance and enlisted in the 508th Parachute Infantry Regiment in 1942.
The pair said they have begun seeking local records and have already found an old yearbook with Taylor featured.
Ameigh, who helped Hyatt apply as part of the gifted student program at the school, said she hopes to find local residents, be it distant relatives or other connections, who might know more about him in the course of their research, especially given that he had no direct descendants.
Hyatt said the research can feel surreal and intimate at times, given the local connection and the knowledge of her family’s connection to World War II, with her great uncle killed in the conflict as a Pacific gunner. Other members of her family have served within her lifetime and continue to serve in the military today.
“Obviously, you hear about it in textbooks, but it puts more of a connection,” Hyatt said.
“So just to have the humanizing aspect where it’s like, ‘these are real people,’ and you can almost see that through our research, and then being able to go stand and give his biography, that’s such an honor because it almost makes him then part of my family at that point — he becomes connected to me, and that’s something I get to share as I age.”
She said work on the project and the additional study has already begun, and she is excited to go to Europe for the first time and connect with new people from across the country interested in studying similar subjects.