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National History Day 2004 Finals

Tuesday, June 15

Senior Presentations and Junior Final Rounds

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Wisconsin's project is posted
for the final round
Today, we'll let the students take center stage and tell the the stories. But first, we are happy to congratulate Danielle Reed, Karlee Shaw, and Leah Sherfinski of D.C. Everest High School on proceeding to the final round of competition with their senior group performance, "Roe v Wade and the Feminist Movement: Encountering a Woman's Right to Choose." These Wisconsinites will present their project in the final round on Wednesday morning at 11:30. Break a leg, Badgers!

Emma and Sarah
Team Wisconsin Coordinators

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From Random Lake High School,
the creators of the senior group
documentary, "King Tut's Tomb,"
relax with their teacher Jim DeBroux
after their presentation on Tuesday.
Today we were judged for our senior division documentary on the exploration of the Tomb of King Tut. The judges were surprisingly nice!!! Then we went to the Diner to eat some lunch. We love the Diner!!! Go all you can eat!!!!!! Then we made some not complete plans and headed out. We took a shuttle out to the metro. We were never on a metro before so it was awesome!!!! We went to the American History Smithsonian. It was really interesting. It’s days like this that you really appreciate air conditioning! We took lots of cool pictures there. We got some sweet chicken pictures from PETA that says “I’m not a nugget.”

After that we bought some Washington D.C. shirts and FBI shirts too. We were pretty anxious to find out it we or anybody from Wisconsin made it finals so we decided to head back. We caught the metro. It was pretty packed so we had to stand. There are some pretty interesting people here in D.C. We’ll just leave it at that! So then we caught the shuttle. We traded some buttons there with some nice people from Georgia. Then we pretty much ran to see who made it to finals. Unfortunately we didn’t but other groups from Wisconsin did so we were happy. Then we got some dinner at the Diner. Our teacher, Mr. DeBroux spilt soda all over the table and on to Brianna. His food was all soaked so he had to go get new food. After we all finished eating we headed back to our rooms. Everybody was pretty tired so we took a short nap. We then went and traded some more buttons around campus.

So far on our visit to D.C. we had an amazing time. This opportunity of being a part of National History Day is something we’ll never forget. Meeting people all over the country, exploring D.C. and the campus was really something. Even though we didn’t make it to finals just being a part of this was a great feeling of winning. Touring all over was a blast, except for when we got separated from our group. What an adventure. Hopefully we’ll be back in the upcoming years. Thank you NHD for this incredible opportunity to be here!!!!

Brianna Hicks
Caitlin Thompson
Kate Vander Velden
Random Lake High School

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Rafaela Rodrigues and Juliana
Gargiulo from Antigo High School
get some lunch at "The Diner."
I’m enjoying my stay here so much. This is a wonderful experience for everyone, but it is also quite a neat one for me, as I’m an exchange student from Argentina. (It is funny because I have never made it to Nationals in anything in my own country, but I did it in a foreign one.) What I really love is that I’m learning a lot about the country that is hosting me, not only about its history but about fabulous places as well; Washington DC has a lot to offer and a lot to see.

Another thing that I also love from this experience is to see how different people from different states are. The accents are so cute. And it’s really interesting to see that a lot of teenagers are interested in history and in making friends, too. I love to socialize and I would’t’ve learned about people from other parts of the US without this experience.

I’m having a wonderful time learning, doing beautiful site-seeing, making friends, knowing new places, new people, and making my year in the U.S. even better.

Juliana Garguilo
Antigo High School

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Mark Van de Loo and his mother
and home school teacher, Susan,
smile for the camera after Mark's
presentation in the final round
Tuesday night.
I spent the day enjoying the National Air and Space Museum. The wide variety of aircraft and espacecraft there was amazing. My favorites were the exhibits on the Wright brothers, and Navy aircraft, and the Apollo capsules that were on display. I was also able to attend a program that gave information about the International Space Station.

I am impressed how easy it is to travel from place to place in D.C. using public transit. You just have to figure out which metro train to take and where the stations are. The shuttle that runs from campus to the College Park metro station makes it easy to hop on the green line which takes you straight into Washington. It would be much harder to travel to such a large variety of places quickly and with out a car in Eau Claire where I live.

This evening, I showed my documentary in the run- off round and it was great! I didn’t have any problems with the equipment and everything ran smoothly. I can’t wait until Thursday to see what the final results will be!

I am definitely having an awesome experience at nationals, both showing my first History Day project, and exploring Washington D.C. for the first time!!

Mark Van de Loo
Eau Claire, WI

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Doug Shultz cues up his documentary,
"Smallpox: The Deadliest Weapon."
Today started out as a pretty crazy day. After finishing editing my paper and bib [NHD lingo for "annotated bibliography"] last night, I went to Kinko’s this morning to print it. I then headed to my assigned room to present it to the gods. Everything went great! The equipment set-up and interview were excellent. I thought about how much better this year’s presentation went than last year’s, and how much better I thought my documentary was. So, the doubt I had that I would make it to the run-off round again this year was slowly ebbing away. With high spirits, I set out to watch Joe Luebke and Jake Kapellan’s group documentary which was outstanding. From there, my family and I went to the co-op to get some lunch. Returning to the dorm, I met up with Jake, Joe, Bethany Ratzlaff, and Joe’s Dad. The five of us went to dinner, and headed into DC for the night. We saw so many things! DC really is an awesome area. We visited numerous places including the WWII, Vietnam War, Korean War, Jefferson, Lincoln, and the FDR memorials, the Washington monument (it was closed so we didn’t get to go up in it, that’s for tomorrow…), and the Reflecting Pool. We also walked quite a bit and saw much of the city between the attractions. To me, the area is much more beautiful at night.

About halfway through our DC excursion, While we were visiting the Washington Monument, my mom called with the results of the first round. We were all very disappointed that none of us had moved on to the final round. Personally, I was extremely disappointed and sad. All the ideas I had had that my documentary was better than last year’s, that the judges seemed to like me, and the interview went well were reversed for a moment. Then I remembered that my movie was, in fact, pretty good. I began to think the judges had made a mistake. I also started thinking that this whole week was a waste of time. However, I remembered that no matter what the judges thought, I still had a lot of fun and learned a lot, and also had created a first rate documentary. I remembered what a great program NHD is, and decided I was just more excited for next year! I also decided I was going to have fun during my short time in DC. Also, thanks to everyone for all the great help!

Doug Shultz
Sheboygan North High School

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Jim DeBroux, a teacher from
Random Lake High School, shows
off his unique Marquette-themed
door decorations.
It has been a fantastic first few days in Maryland. As a third year National History Day teacher, I had looked with envy at the select few who were meeting at the front of the auditorium after the national qualifiers were announced at the state event every year. This year, little old Random Lake joined that select group. I have said to friends, supporters, and colleagues ever since that it seemed unreal. It still does. I couldn’t ask for a better learning experience for myself and for my students. These four wonderful young ladies have learned about dedication, having a passion for history, preparedness, grace under pressure, on and on. I can’t speak for them but I’ve learned a lot about the wonder of both our capital and all 50 states through all the historians gathered here this week. We’re a long way from Random Lake, but our discussions are always about “when” we’re here next year, not “if.” If teachers are on the fence about history day… jump in, teaching doesn’t get any better than this.

Jim DeBroux
Random Lake High School

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NHD isn't all work. Here,
Wisconsin students hang out in our
air-conditioned lounge in the Hagerstown
Dormitory.
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"Soldiers Grove: Out of the River
and Into the Sun" by Lindsey
Kamp and Julia Steege of Monona
Grove High School has been on
display in the Grand Ballroom all week.




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