Warsaw Students Move on to National History Competition
Posted
David Slone-dslone@timesuniononline.com
After winning at National History Day state finals Saturday, three Warsaw Community High School sophomores will now move on to national competition in June in Washington, D.C.
In Indianapolis, Mayra Malagon, Moses Marandet and Vanessa Malagon competed in the senior group performance category with “The Montgomery Bus Protest: Reaction Leads to Reform for Justice.”
National History Day is a highly regarded academic program for elementary and secondary school students, according to the official website.
Each year, more than half a million students, encouraged by thousands of teachers nationwide participate in the NHD contest. Students choose historical topics related to a theme and conduct extensive primary and secondary research through libraries, archives, museums, oral history interviews and historic sites. After analyzing and interpreting their sources and drawing conclusions about their topics’ significance in history, students present their work in original papers, websites, exhibits, performances and documentaries, according to the website.
These products are entered into competitions in the spring at local, state and national levels where they are evaluated by professional historians and educators. The program culminates in the Kenneth E. Behring National Contest each June held at the University of Maryland at College Park.
During an interview Monday afternoon, Vanessa said she and Mayra started working on the 10-minute performance piece in August.
“We were going to do fashion, but it didn’t work well with the theme,” Vanessa said.
This year’s theme was “Revolution: Reaction & Reform.”
Mayra said three years ago her National History Day project was on Frederick Douglass, and it would have worked for this year’s theme but she didn’t want to repeat herself. They then decided to focus on the Montgomery Bus Boycott and its effect on the Civil Rights Movement.
While working on the project, Mayra and Vanessa realized they needed a guy for their performance project. Marandet joined them in September.
Asked what they discovered about the Montgomery Bus Boycott, Vanessa said it was “381 days of walking and carpooling.”
“It was meant to be one day at first,” Marandet said.
To advance to Saturday’s state competition, Vanessa said they competed at district in March at St. Mary’s in South Bend. They placed first at district.
From district to state, Mayra said they changed everything but the title of the performance.
Marandet said they made the whole set for state competition and changed the script a lot.
Mayra said the set design came to them while at Culver’s. She said she was playing with a napkin, when she remembered a board she used two years ago on a project about Madame CJ Walker.
Vanessa said the panel folds six different ways to create different backgrounds for scenes of the performance. There are many different posters on the board.
“We beat our rivals at state. They’ve been beating us every year since Mayra started National History Day. We’re still friends, but it felt good to beat them,” said Vanessa.
More than 700 projects competed Saturday at Marian University in Indianapolis at the state National History Day competition, Mayra said. There were various categories, with the WCHS group competing in senior group performance.
The performance was Mayra’s third, Vanessa’s second and Marandet’s first year.
“It was fun,” said Vanessa. “I wasn’t nervous at all. We had practiced every single day. We all knew our lines. I didn’t feel any nerves.”
Marandet said he felt “probably the same as them, but more pressure because I didn’t want to let them down.”
“Every year is different for me,” Mayra said. “I still get nervous. It still gets exciting for me. Every year there is a different theme. It just depends.”
Between now and nationals June 10-14, Vanessa said they will keep making improvements. She said they will probably change the process paper and bibliography and maybe do some interviews.
They also thanked Richard and Nancy Rooker for being their coaches and help.
“They help us do everything,” said Vanessa. “We love them!”
