Merrehope always captured Emily Price’s interest whenever she visited the historic home museum, and now the Meridian teen has developed a tool to make the popular tourist attraction even more engaging to visitors.

Price, a recent graduate of Lamar School, created custom QR codes for the rooms at Merrehope so those touring the home can scan the barcode with their cell phone, which will take them to a webpage with text that gives a little more information about furnishings in the room and some of the former owners of the house museum.

The QR, or quick response, code project was part of Price’s effort to become a Gold Award Girl Scout, the highest and most prestigious award given in Girl Scouting, similar to the Boy Scouts Eagle Scout Award. She completed the QR codes her junior year, earning her Gold Award, which is awarded to a Girl Scout senior or ambassador who has found a way to make a lasting change or fix a problem in their community.

“I love this historic home. We always came here for Dusty tea,” Price said. “I knew this was a place, where if I could figure out how to benefit it, then I felt like I could make a difference here. Obviously, the QR codes were not the first thing that came to mind, but then slowly I was able to come to the conclusion that they would probably be a good idea.”

The QR codes are displayed in each of Merrehope’s rooms so visitors can easily access them, and one of the codes leads to a survey where Price and members of the Meridian Restorations Foundation, the owners of Merrehope, can see visitors’ response to the survey. The QR code generator Price used for her project allows a limited number of scans per month, which was quickly reached during the Trees of Christmas tours last December.

“It was honestly exciting for me to hear that the views had been used up, and so many people were wanting to look at it,” Price said, adding she had to increase the number of scans allowed for the tours.

Price came up with the idea for the project partly from her own life experiences of living with juvenile arthritis since she was 3 years old.

“With my arthritis, especially on walking tours or even college campus tours, it was always difficult for me to get around and stay up with the tour groups,” she said, “so for me, the QR codes are more of an accessible way to tour the home so you can take it at your own pace. You are not following a tour guide. Even for those who are hard of hearing, you don’t have to listen just to the tour guide, you can read it on the screen and there is no barrier between learning.”

Earning the Gold Award was one of many achievements Price reached while at Lamar. She served as the Student Council president, the National Honor Society president, Empowerment for Women in STEM Club president, Mu Alpha Theta Honor Society president, as well as played volleyball and was an archer. She was Miss Lamar High School her senior year, was named salutatorian and was one of two Star Students for the Class of 2024.

She also is one of 150 students from across the nation named to the 36th class of Coca Cola Scholars earlier this year, a prestigious honor that includes a $20,000 college scholarship. This year’s Coca Cola Scholars were chosen from a pool of more than 103,000 applications with Price being one of only three Mississippians selected.

“I would absolutely recommend that any high school senior apply for the Coca-Cola scholarship because it opens so many opportunities and allows networking with other high performing students,” she said.

Price also won a National Honor Society Semifinalist scholarship for 2024, a University of Alabama Competitive Achievement Scholarship and was a {span dir=”ltr”}GE-Reagan Foundation Scholarship Program Semifinalist{/span}.

She will be heading to Alabama this month as a freshman where she plans to major in biology with an ultimate goal of becoming a pediatric rheumatologist, so she can help treat other children who have juvenile arthritis.

An ambassador for the Arthritis Foundation, Price served as the designated speaker for the Walk to Cure Arthritis held in Birmingham, Alabama, in 2023.

The daughter of a pediatrician, Dr. Deanna Price, and the granddaughter of a retired pediatrician, Dr. Jimmy Isbell, she said it’s not surprising medical school is in her future.

“I just want to encourage people like my doctors have encouraged me. I had the same doctor that diagnosed me at 3 years old go with me all the way into my teens. He knew all about me, and my mom could send him a text message instead of a formal appointment,” she said. “It was just nice to have that close of a connection with somebody that cared about me, saw me through remission, comfort me when I got out of remission. I just like the patient-doctor relationship.”