Five students from Warsaw Community Schools earned first-place medals Saturday after winning a group award at the National History Day in Indiana state contest.
The team of Geoffrey Hochstetler, Ryun Hoffert, Keller Bailey, Elijah Zaugg and Jason Benyousky won their medal in the category of Youth Group Performance. Their sponsors and coaches were Dick and Nancy Rooker.
The team now advances to national competition June 12 to 16 at the University of Maryland, College Park.
Warsaw Community Schools had four teams competing at the state competition on Saturday. Each of these four teams qualified out of the regional competition held at St. Mary’s College in South Bend. The competition was extremely tough in every category and students represented many schools throughout Indiana, according to WCS Superintendent Dr. David Hoffert.
The first-place team of students have been researching and studying the history of Texas independence and specifically the Alamo for the past eight months. This research included visiting the Alamo in San Antonio, Texas, and interviewing some of the foremost experts and historians in the field, Hoffert said. These students read and citied multiple books and researched the primary source documents on the subject. They then created a group presentation telling the story of the history and connecting the history to modern day issues facing America.
Nearly 500 students took part in Saturday’s competition, hosted by the Indiana Historical Society, at Ivy Tech’s campus in downtown Indianapolis, according to a press release from the Indiana Historical Society.
National History Day in Indiana is a year-long program dedicated to enhancing history education in elementary and secondary schools. To participate, students in grades four through 12 explore a historical topic and use their research to create a documentary, exhibit, paper, performance or website, the release states.
All first- and second-place state finishers in each junior and senior category are now eligible to compete in The Kenneth E. Behring National History Day Contest. The national competition will take place June 12 to 16 at the University of Maryland, College Park.
This year’s theme is “Explore, Encounter, Exchange in History,” and national competition will be tough, with about 3,000 students competing from across the country and international schools around the world, the release states.
NHDI is sponsored by IHS, with support from Teachers Credit Union. For more information on this and other IHS programs, call (317) 232-1882 or visit IHS online at www.indianahistory.org.
