Heights students make it to Nationals in National History Day contest

Students in Kathy Haig’s sophomore research class at Wisconsin Heights Middle and High School recently competed in the National History Day® (NHD) Contest. The regional and state events were held virtually in Madison, WI in February and April, and the national event will be held virtually from June 12-18 in College Park, Maryland. The 2022 contest theme was Debate & Diplomacy in History: Successes, Failures, Consequences.   Nine of the thirteen members of the class qualified for the state contest, and then, in a stupendous achievement, Violet Bollenbach and Felicity Crowe qualified for the National Event! Only two other students from Heights have qualified for Nationals in the almost two decades that Heights has been competing in the NHD contest. The students in the research class joined more than half a million students globally who completed projects in one of five categories: documentary, exhibit, paper, performance, or website. Violet and Felicity created an exhibit titled “The Great Lakes Fishery Commission: A Success of Diplomacy” that explained the century-long effort to establish a decision-making body consisting of the states and Canadian provinces bordering the Great Lakes. Their exhibit took first place in the regional event and then was one of the top two in the entire state at the state event.  In addition to Violet and Felicity’s great achievement, Emma Pouvreau, an exchange student from France, was named an alternate in the documentary category. Her documentary, “France Hosts Both Debate and Diplomacy During World War II,” drew on primary sources, including letters and photographs from her great-grandparents, to tell the story of Vichy France during WWII. Being named an alternate means that a student has attained one of the top four spots in the state, an especially noteworthy achievement considering Emma was competing against native English speakers! The National History Day contest offers several special awards as well, and a team of students from Heights earned one of these awards—at two different levels of the competition. Brett Droessler, Levi Hellenbrand, and Keillor Schuetz created an exhibit titled “Kohler Strike of 1934: Result of Failed Diplomacy” that won the Labor History Award and a cash prize from the Wisconsin Labor History Society at the regional level and then won the award again, along with an additional cash prize, at the state level! The contest represents quite a commitment of time and effort. After completing a project, students compete in a series of contests beginning at the local level. The top students from all 50 states, D.C., U.S. territories, and international schools are invited to compete in the National Contest.  “To make it to the National Contest is always a remarkable achievement,” said NHD Executive Director Dr. Cathy Gorn. “This year’s theme of Debate and Diplomacy is so topical as we are at a critical moment when teaching history and assigning historical books in the classroom are hotly debated subjects. Yet, we see that our students want to learn about the whole of U.S. history, that they want to be engaged and informed. We are so proud of their efforts to uncover, analyze, and share history in the projects they choose to pursue.”  More than 400 historians and education professionals served as judges for the students’ work, and as with all other aspects of the contest this year, the judging was conducted remotely online. More than 100 students from across the country were awarded cash prizes between $500 and $2,000, each, for superior work in specific judging categories.