School Board Celebrates National History Day, Lauds D.C. Qualifers
Posted
Jackie Gorski-jgorski@timesuniononline.com
Warsaw School Board celebrated National History Day at its meeting Monday.
The board was informed 19 students qualified for nationals in Washington, D.C.
One of the projects presented was by Raquel Brouwer, who did a project on Louis Braille, the inventor of the braille system. She decided to do a presentation of him due to the fact she worked with a blind classmate last school year and saw how this classmate dealt with some experiences, including using a braille type writer.
Hannah Bradford and Grace Friedberg talked about their project on the World War II Japanese interment camps, saying not many people know about them.
“It’s kind of secret,” Bradford said.
Warsaw Community High School freshman Abby Rahn did a research paper on the abolition of slavery in Great Britain.
“I found it interesting to find out why people are so discriminating toward other people,” she said. She also said she started off the project by watching the movie “Amazing Grace.”
Rachel Doyle gave her presentation on Dr. Jonas Salk and the polio vaccine. She said she used about 60 sources.
Sixth-graders Robinson Hoffert, Eisenhower Elementary School, and Finn Bailey, Washington STEM Academy; Edgewood Middle School eighth-graders Keller Bailey, Ryun Hoffert and Jason Benyousky also put on their performance on the Freedom Riders. It was a 10-minute performance that talked about various aspects of the Freedom Riders.
In order to put the performance together, the students stated they needed about three months’ worth of research to get enough to work with in order to get at least 10 minutes.
Some of the most interesting people the Edgewood students found from the Civil Rights Movement included Charles Person, who was the youngest Freedom Rider at age 18; James Worth, an everyday person from Wisconsin who hadn’t seen a black person until he was 11; and Jim Zwerg, one of the few white people that participated in the Civil Rights Movement.
“We are super excited for you at nationals,” Superintendent Dr. David Hoffert said, stating it’s not just about the research, it’s also about the presentation skills that make it hard.
In other news, the school board acknowledged Noah Marshall as being one of four students in the state to attend the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, Colo.
Marshall stated he knows he’ll be in the Air Force for at least eight years, not including the one or two years it will take for pilot training. He’d like to see if he can stay in for the full 20 years for the pension. He’ll also have to decide what other options lay open to him, including politics.
