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History comes alive at Sixth Annual History Day event
More than 50 students from 15 counties in Southeast Kansas brought history to life on Saturday.
According to John Seal, the local coordinator for the Sixth Annual Kansas History Day event, the students who participated in this year's event worked diligently to produce superior history day projects.
"I thought the local kids did an excellent job," Seal said. "I am proud of them. The kids blew people away with the amount of work they did and the quality of their work."
In previous years, students from Fort Scott Middle School and the Uniontown school district have participated in the event. However, this year there were no entries from FSMS students or Uniontown students. Although participation from Bourbon County students was down this year, there was slightly more student participation in the event than there was last year, Seal said. Entries from students from Baldwin High School in Baldwin City helped raise this year's participation numbers, according to Seal.
According to a press release from Fort Scott Community College, many of the Bourbon County students who competed walked away from the event victorious. Fort Scott Christian Heights had 26 students who placed in the event, according to FSCH history day sponsors Maria Bahr and Karen Schellack. In the senior division, Ashleigh Page, Ashley Goodwin, and Jake Stevenson, were awarded first place for their team documentary entitled "Hero Street Soldiers." FSCH student Patricia Schafer earned first place for her individual documentary "Pigtails and Protest: Sheyann Webb the Smallest Freedom Fighter," and also in the senior division, Rachel Grotheer, Fort Scott Christian Heights, won first place for her historical paper entitled "Pinchas Rosenbaum." Theresa Schafer, Elizabeth Wallace, and David Cox, Fort Scott Christian Heights, received second place for their senior performance "Cyclone in Calico: The Nation in Her Wake."
FSCH team members Kaitlen Arnold, Alex Arnold, and Beth Hill, placed second for their senior exhibit called "Barney Ford." In the senior Web site category, Austin Hansen, Nathan Davolt, and Jacob Hansen, Fort Scott Christian Heights, took first place for their entry "Henryk Slawik: The Man That Saved Thousands." FSCH students Jared Bahr, Jaedon Lamb, and Melissa Wray received second place in the senior Web site division for their entry entitled "Silvestre Herrera: An Individual Advancing Civil Rights through Valor."
In the junior division, the FSCH team consisting of Madyson McColm, Zack Pridey, and Elizabeth Hall earned first place with their performance of "What's a Women Doing Here?" Faith Davolt, Fort Scott Christian Heights, walked away with first place for her individual junior level performance of "A Voice from Which We Cannot Turn Away." FSCH junior high student Zadok Self received first place for his Web site entry called "Jan Zabinski." Also in the junior division, Allie Reeves, Beth Cox, and Rebecca Wray, Fort Scott Christian Heights, received second place for their junior exhibit "Helen Singleton: Riding for Freedom."
According to Bahr, some of her students participated in an event that they had not had an opportunity to partake in before. The Web site category helped Bahr's students develop new technological skills, Bahr said.
"My students got into a new category," Bahr said. "We've been excited about it. We have been using Adobe Dreamweaver to create Web sites. The students had an opportunity to learn technology and skills as well as advanced research skills. This will help them become better overall students."
A group of Fort Scott High School students also found success at the History Day event, according to their sponsor Megan Felt of the Lowell Milken Center. FSHS students Kai Mims, Reanda Mims, Grant Stucky, and Keenan Gregory earned first place for their senior group performance "A Recipe For Legacy: 35 MM and a Wide Angle Lens."
"They did a great job and put a lot of hard work and effort into creating and performing it," Felt said.
Although the local students fared well in the district competition, their work is far from over, according to Schellack.
"It was a good day. I'm glad it's over at this point, but we are looking forward to going to state," Schellack said. "When we receive the judges comments, we will start refining our projects for state."
Felt said although the group of students from FSHS put forth an excellent performance during the district competition, they will have to make some improvements before they compete in the state competition.
"There is always room for improvement," Felt said.
According to Felt, because of the efforts of the district organizers, the students she sponsors will be better prepared for the state competition.
"It goes back to all the hard work that John Seal did," Felt said. "He found good judges who could give good critiques. Now they (students) will take the critiques the judges gave and use the ideas to help them prepare for the state competition."
The district winners will compete at the Kansas History Day championship competition on April 25 at Washburn University in Topeka. The winners of the state competition will compete at the national level against more than 800,000 students from across the United States in June.