Jacob Halloway ’24 was busy setting up for an NCAA volleyball tournament at Christopher Newport University, where he works in the athletics department, when he got a text message from his former communication studies professor back in Farmville.
Dr. Ryan Stouffer, assistant professor of communication studies, was sharing the good news that Halloway had just won an Emmy Award for his film The Choice of a Few: The Story of Davis v. County School Board of Prince Edward County.
Halloway then tuned into the awards ceremony to confirm that he had indeed won a regional award in the 2024 nonfiction long-form documentary category at the National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences National Capital Chesapeake Bay Chapter Student Production Awards. Then he went back to work getting ready for the busy day ahead. It wasn’t until later that he had a chance to reflect on the accolade he won just six months after graduating from Longwood.
After taking a second and realizing what I accomplished, it was definitely a very proud moment. I was proud of myself and very thankful for the Moton Museum, Dr. Stouffer and everyone else who played a part in it.
Jacob Halloway ’24 Tweet This
“After taking a second and realizing what I accomplished, it was definitely a very proud moment,” he said. “I was proud of myself and very thankful for the Moton Museum, Dr. Stouffer and everyone else who played a part in it.”
Halloway’s documentary was his senior capstone project for his COMM 445 class. He decided to highlight the Prince Edward County court case that became part of the landmark Brown v. Board of Education decision by the U.S. Supreme Court, which ruled that separating children in public schools on the basis of race was unconstitutional. This year marked the 70th anniversary of the 1954 decision, which involved five separate cases related to the segregation of public schools on the basis of race—including Davis v. County School Board of Prince Edward County.
The Chesterfield County native and Manchester High School graduate said his inspiration for the documentary was also based on his own personal experience.
In the spring of 2023, while a student at Longwood, Halloway worked as a communications and media assistant at the Robert Russa Moton Museum, which is housed in the building that was Prince Edward’s all-black high school during segregation and where the plaintiffs in the Davis case attended school. There he helped create digital media content for the museum’s annual fundraiser, Moton Live. Before he got that job, he said he didn’t know the Moton story or the local history that tied Prince Edward to the landmark Brown case.
“I read up on all the history of the Moton Museum, and I was kind of taken aback because I had never heard of the school walkout,” Halloway recalled. “I had never heard of Barbara Johns’ protest. I’d heard the name, but I didn’t know the full story. I thought, if I haven’t heard about this after living my whole life in Chesterfield—which is only about an hour away—then how many other people haven’t heard this story? It definitely opened my eyes to some of the things that we are surrounded by that have so much history.”
Halloway credited Stouffer with playing a key role in his achievement. Stouffer was the one who approached him about the opportunity to work at the museum, and Stouffer encouraged him to submit the documentary to the regional Emmy competition.
It recently has become somewhat of a tradition that a graduating Longwood senior wins a golden statue for a piece of work their senior year. In 2022, Makayla Jennings ’22 won an Emmy Award from the National Capital Chesapeake Bay Chapter of the National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences for her documentary on Black American cowboys. Sam Chase ’21 won in 2021 in the short-form documentary category for his piece on the first protest in Farmville following the death of George Floyd in 2020.
Halloway graduated with a degree in communication studies (digital media concentration) in May. He now works at CNU as manager of video production for athletics. While at Longwood, he served as coordinator of broadcast operations for the Lancers and as a member of the ESPN+ crew for athletics events.
Leave a Comment