Three hundred and twenty-nine middle and high school students from the South Puget Sound took part in the regional-level National History Day event on March 28, 2019.

Finalists from Cedar Heights Middle School, Kent Mountain View Academy, and Meeker Middle School competed against more than 300 students from the South Puget Sound region on March 28 and 26 KSD students will go on to the state competition at Central Washington University May 4.

They joined others from schools from King County south of I-90 to the county border, Pierce, and Thurston. One hundred and four students representing fifty-one projects were selected as state finalists and will go on to represent the South Puget Sound at the state competition, which takes place at Central Washington University on May 4, 2019.

National History Day is an academic enrichment program for students in grades 6-12. Students select topics connected to an annual theme and complete their own in-depth research on the topic. This year, the annual theme is “Triumph and Tragedy in History”. Students present their conclusions by creating museum-style exhibits, media documentaries, research papers, interactive websites, and dramatic performances.

The regional event is the second step in a competition cycle that can take students from the school level to regional, state, and national competitions. At each level of competition students share their work with their peers, historians, educators, and professionals in related fields as they complete for special awards and the opportunity to advance to the next level of competition.

South Puget Sound Regional History Day Contest Results

Junior Division

Category: Historical Paper

First Place: Influenza, A World Wide Disaster: The Pandemic That Changed Everything
Students: Erika Beltran
School: Cedar Heights Middle School
Second Place: New York’s Desperate Hours: Poliomyelitis
Students: Kristine Asprer
School: Cedar Heights Middle School
Third Place: 1882 Halsted’s Radical Mastectomy: The Triumphant Surgery That Saved the Tragedy of Cancer Treatments
Students: Joshua William-Ajaero
School: Kent Mountain View Academy

Category: Individual Exhibit Section 1

First Place: Won by Women
Students: Kayley Day
School: Meeker Middle School
Second Place: Anti-Filipinos
Students: Jennifer Garcia
School: Meeker Middle School
Third Place: The Flint Water Crisis: A Fatal Water Switch
Students: Matt Valentine
School: Nova Middle School

Category: Individual Exhibit Section 2

First Place: From Housewives, to Heroine
Students: Katelyn Maner
School: Rainier Middle School
Second Place: Bhopal Gas Leak: Where people suffered; the government listened; Union Carbide did nothing
Students: Ashmin Grewal
School: Kent Mountain View Academy
Third Place: Up From Slavery: Washington’s Dream Du Bois’s Compromise
Students: Nia Brice
School: Kent Mountain View Academy

Category: Group Exhibit Section 1

First Place: The Rape of Nanking: A Time of Victory, Conquest, Misery
Students: Alanna Palacios, Nailyn Pena, Cezille Pachoca, Helen Scheper
School: Cedarcrest Middle School
Second Place: A Night To Remeber
Students: Sophie Lakew, Hannah Mcdunnah, Samantha Lingo, Victoria Rowland
School: Cedar Heights Middle School
Third Place: “Anyway, We Delivered The Bomb.”
Students: Maggie Hansen, Erica Maes
School: Cedar Heights Middle School

Category: Group Exhibit Section 2

First Place: The Triumphs and Tragedies of Cesar Chavez
Students: Daniela Vargas, Zalika Sou, Ashley Simpson
School: Cedarcrest Middle School
Second Place: The Fall of Tenochtitlan
Students: Joshua Auman, Payton Warner, David Ogabi
School: Cedar Heights Middle School
Third Place: Art of Death: When the Plague Strikes
Students: Yasmine Mikos, Brie Catherson, Jamison Richards
School: Cedar Heights Middle School

Category: Individual Performance

First Place: Guilty Until Proven Innocent: The Unjust Trails that Caused the Tragedy of the Salem Witch Trials
Students: Ashley Gramann
School: Kent Mountain View Academy
Second Place: The Trip To Ellis Island: The Triumphs And Tradegies That It Caused
Students: Kyra Van
School: Kent Mountain View Academy
Third Place: The Tragedies of Child Labour
Students: Alex McDuffie
School: Kent Mountain View Academy

Category: Group Performance

First Place: Society’s Wave of Death: Alaska Spanish Pandemic Flu
Students: Ian Rizzo, Zoe Areglo, Haley Demangelaere, Ella Drivas
School: Elk Plain School of Choice
Second Place: The Panacea of Polio
Students: Hailey Edwards, Nora Kimmett
School: Cedar Heights Middle School
Third Place: The Dark Secrets Behind China’s Wealth
Students: Alyssa Martin, Nathalia Ortiz
School: Cedar Heights Middle School

Category: Individual Documentary

First Place: 9/11 America’s Triumph Over Tragedy
Students: Anna Mitchell
School: Cedar Heights Middle School
Second Place: From Devastation comes Salvation: Nuclear Success after an Age of War
Students: Laurean Love
School: Kent Mountain View Academy
Third Place: Yellowstone’s Gray Wolf: The Unexpected Triumphs of Wildlife Reintroduction
Students: Nevada Nelson
School: Kent Mountain View Academy

Category: Group Documentary

First Place: Hung For No Reason or Hung For Treason?: The Nuremberg Trials
Students: Thorin Bosserman, Logan Lovely, Corbin Avichouser, Brycen Tuck
School: Elk Plain School of Choice
Second Place: Christmas Spirit Between the Trenches
Students: Mason Newton, Gage Kroh, Ethan Loghry
School: Cedar Heights Middle School
Third Place: LGBT+ Stonewall Riots: The Fight for the Rights
Students: Evelyn Rivera Narvaez, Valen Bostick, Skye Joyner
School: Cedarcrest Middle School

Category: Individual Website

First Place: The Battle of Saragarhi
Students: Aidan McQuillen
School: Kent Mountain View Academy
Second Place: Thomas Edison
Students: Lili Korpal
School: Komachin Middle School
Third Place: Stonewall Riots Where it all Started
Students: Peyton Sellers
School: Liberty Middle School

Category: Group Website

First Place: The Rise and Fall of Justinian I
Students: Justin Cerenzie, Cameron Daniels, Aiden Johnson, Jason Dugan
School: Cedar Heights Middle School
Second Place: The Berlin Wall: A Statue to Power and Relations
Students: Seenar Nabass, Travis Butts, Hunter Northcott
School: Liberty Middle School

Senior Division

Category: Historical Paper

First Place: A Portrait: Chinese Americans in the Law Beneath the Shadow of Exclusion
Students: Sarah Xu
School: Lakeside Upper School
Second Place: The Kwangju Democratization Movement
Students: Jae Won Yoon
School: Charles Wright Academy

Category: Individual Exhibit

First Place: The Bone Wars
Students: Janessa Hansen
School: Kent Mountain View Academy
Second Place: The Man, The Mouse, and The Rabbit
Students: Ameemah Khan
School: Kent Mountain View Academy
Third Place: Women’s Suffrage
Students: Simryn Sahota
School: Auburn Mountainview High School

Category: Group Exhibit

First Place: From Bombs to Blossoms: The Rise of Postwar Japan
Students: Sophia Koruga, Sarah Eykel, Ali Gumapas
School: Kennedy Catholic
Second Place: Stephen Hawking: Mind Over Dark Matter
Students: Ian Bishop, Sophia Moore, Anjali Mungra, Ave Dimond
School: Kennedy Catholic
Third Place: The Atomic Bomb: The Tragedy of Hiroshima and Nagasaki
Students: Lucy Conway, Sofia De Torres, Kailee Massenburg
School: Kennedy Catholic
Fourth Place: Trapped in their Ancestry
Students: Alitza De Anda, Chantelle Harms
School: Auburn Mountainview High School
Fifth Place: The San Francisco Earthquake and Fire: Change born from Tragedy
Students: Erick Martinez, Gurneet Sandhu, Claricarmen Gonzalez
School: Auburn Mountainview High School

Category: Individual Performance

First Place: The Triumphs and Tragedies of a Young Female Soldier in the American Civil War
Students: CarolJean Metzelaar
School: Kent Mountain View Academy

Category: Individual Documentary

First Place: The War Against an Invisible Enemy
Students: Maria-Victoria Kovalsky
School: Kent Mountain View Academy, Des Moines, WA
Second Place: The Television War: The Media’s Stand Against the Vietnam War
Students: Seth Tuttle
School: Kent Mountain View Academy, Des Moines, WA

Category: Group Documentary

First Place: Taking a Stand by Doing Nothing: Two Men Who Saved the World
Students: Libby Williams, Isaac Ruymen
School: Kentwood High School, Kent, WA
Second Place: Baryshnikov Pointes to Freedom
Students: Emily Bradish, Tinsae Shifreaw, Darla Doell, Mara Davis
School: John F. Kennedy Catholic High School, Burien, WA
Third Place: John F. Kennedy- The End of a War that Never Started
Students: Tanner Smith, Cole Stephenson, Lucky Ruona
School: John F. Kennedy Catholic High School, Burien, WA

Category: Individual Website

First Place: 1968: Salute
Students: Heidi Xu
School: Charles Wright Academy, Tacoma, WA
Second Place: Sepoy Rebellion: Was The Sepoy Rebellion Of 1856 A Failure?
Students: Jaskaran Athwal
School: Kent Mountain View Academy, Des Moines, WA

Category: Group Website

First Place: Cesar Chavez Farm Workers Hero
Students: Stephany Alcantar, Evangely Lemus-Colon, Angela Nava
School: Auburn Mountainview High School, Auburn, WA
Second Place: Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B Anthony, and Alice Paul in the Women’s Suffrage Movement.
Students: Madison Rebelo, Mackenzie Dierich, Sarynn Good
School: John F. Kennedy Catholic High School, Burien, WA
Third Place: Taking a Stand Agaist Genocide in Rwanda
Students: Claire O’Neill, Hanna Hood, Anna Skey
School: John F. Kennedy Catholic High School, Burien, WA

Participation in the program continues to grow with more than 500,000 students participating annually across the nation. The National History Day program in Washington is coordinated by the Washington State Historical Society.