About 30 mostly deaf people protested in Newnan Wednesday. They want a bankruptcy court trustee to release $1 million they say was meant for three schools for the deaf and blind.

The money was earned by state school superintendent Kathy Cox last year when she appeared on the game show “Are you Smarter than a 5th Grader.”

During the show, she said that she’d split the million dollars between three public schools for the blind and the deaf.

But a few months later her husband, a builder, filed for bankruptcy and now the money is in legal limbo.

Dana Boylen has a child at the Georgia Academy for the Blind in Macon. She says the creditors shouldn’t get the money.

"It’s ridiculous that these funds haven’t been released by now. It’s been a year. They were never rightfully in Kathy Cox’s ownership for them to have a claim to those. It’s only what’s right."

Lawyers for the creditors say Cox signed papers with Fox Broadcasting that says any winnings would be considered personal income.

Tags: Kathy Cox, Are You Smarter than a 5th Grader?, Fox Broadcasting Co., bankruptcy, Newnan, state schools Superintendent, deaf, blind, prize money