Kevin Shannahan

Two Natchitoches Parish high schools turned in commanding performances in the Northwest Louisiana Regional National History Day Contest, held Saturday, March 7 at the Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame and Northwest Louisiana History Museum. Two contingents from the Louisiana School for Math, Science and the Arts and Saint Mary’s made a clean sweep of first place honors with a student from one of the schools earning first place in every category.

Faculty members from NSU, the Cammie G. Henry Archives and Research Center and Melrose Plantation were joined by Adam Foreman, Student Programs Specialist at the National WWII Museum in New Orleans in judging the day’s entries. The winners listed below will move on to the state level competition to be held March 28 at New Orleans’ National WWII Museum. As you can see, two Natchitoches Parish schools figure rather prominently in the list of winners!

The National History Day Competition has been held since 1974 and is an excellent opportunity for young men and women to develop skills in a variety of areas, not just history. The contestants I met that day were a uniformly impressive group of young men and women who displayed a passion for their projects as well as a poise and level of knowledge far beyond their years.

The Natchitoches Parish Journal would like to take this opportunity to commend the teachers at the LSMSA and Saint Mary’s whose encouragement and support were integral to the students’ success. We also wish the young men and women every success as they represent their schools at the state competition at the WWII Museum, and hopefully at the national contest. As a final note, the Natchitoches Parish Journal would love to see every high school in the parish represented at next year’s competition.

Paper
Louisiana School for Math Science the Arts, Natchitoches
Sophia Abbahou “Breaking Barriers: Jewish-Americans in the Deep South, 1700-1865”—1st place

Bolton High School, Alexandria
Thomas Rogers “Breaking Barriers in College Athletics with the Fair Pay to Play Bill”—2nd place
Grace James “Gwendolyn Brooks: Breaking Black Poetic Barriers” –3rd place

Individual Documentary
Louisiana School for Math Science the Arts
Kaitlyn Kahn “Pathmarking and Trailblazing: Ruth Bader Ginsburg”—1st place

Group Exhibit
St. Mary’s Catholic School
Cayleigh Braud, Laura Aviles, and Luke Zeagler “Mexico’s Rogue Nun”—1st place
Chloe Cremeans, Damon Legrande, and Zoe Brock “The Age of Disney”—2nd place
Andrew Godfrey, Jensen Parker, and Maggie Gilmore “Ham, The AstroChimp”—3rd place
Benjamin Smiley, Tim Lyddy, and Zachary Slaughter “Eagle and Armstrong”—4th place
Michael Guillet and Patrick Vienne “Nelson Mandela takes down Apartheid”—Certificate of participation

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