Erin Sheppard, a St. Pius X High School senior, participated in the 2014 Martin Luther King Jr. Commemorative Service at Atlanta’s Ebenezer Baptist Church. The televised service was carried live on Atlanta’s FOX 5 television station on Jan. 20.

Erin Sheppard, a senior at St. Pius X High School, speaks at the 2014 Martin Luther King Jr. Commemorative Service at Ebenezer Baptist Church, Atlanta. She was selected following an interview and audition process. Photo By Teresa Sheppard

Following an interview and audition process, Sheppard was selected to share in a reading of the Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech, which was delivered by Dr. King in 1964.

Erin is the daughter of Bill Sheppard and Teresa Penley Sheppard and is a member of the Cathedral of Christ the King.

Erin is the second student to represent St. Pius X High School. In 2012, St. Pius X valedictorian Shockley Nunnery participated in the event. Shockley’s mother, Marci Nunnery, recommended Erin to the event’s program director, Connie Smith.

Each year, service organizers choose readers from top students around the Atlanta metropolitan area from diverse ethnicities, cultures and religious practices. Erin has held leadership positions at the high school, including as a student ambassador, and outside of school volunteers collecting eyeglasses for Operation I Care and Georgia Lions Lighthouse.

There was another St. Pius X connection at the service. Sister Margaret McAnoy, IHM, vicar for religious for the Archdiocese of Atlanta, delivered the benediction. Sister Margaret at one time taught theology at the school.