Hastings District History Day

On Wednesday, March 13, a group of American History students led by history teacher, Ann Mays, went to the Hastings District History Day. The competition was held at Hastings College and three schools attended: Hastings Senior High School, Hastings Middle School, and Lawrence-Nelson High School.

Currently, Mays is the only history teacher at HHS to make History Day part of his or her curriculum.

“I try to convince other teachers to do it too. I feel like it’s one of the only opportunities [for high school students] to participate in a real world situation. Having to defend your project is a college level activity, [students] aren’t going to get that experience if they’re just presenting to class,” said Mays.

Students started these projects back in October and worked on them up until the day before the competition. They could choose to do any topic they wanted as long as it fit under the theme Turning Points in History. There were many different mediums students could choose; from writing an essay, making a website, creating a documentary, performing a skit, to creating an exhibit.

Hastings College offers the top three overall winners scholarships to attend their school. They offer $6000, $5000, and a $4000 respectively to the winners.

“Hastings is the only district in the state that rewards winners a scholarship,” said Mays.

(For a full list of Hastings High School winners, check down below)

Lacey Lurz, 3rd place winner, created an exhibit over Harvard University. She thought the project was tough but worth it.

“It was the biggest one I’ve ever done in school. Luckily we had time to work on it in and out of class. I got $4,000 scholarship which is awesome because I want to go there,” said junior Lurz.

For Mays, the judging and competition is just a fun lure for the students. She believes the true beauty is in the process of creating the project. Mays says that the projects this year were exceptional, particularly the technology based projects. She thinks that technology projects are going to become the standard in future years.

“Compared to previous years, I noticed that students are getting a lot better making iMovies and websites,” said Mays.

The top three winners from each category get the opportunity to go to the State History Competition, which is going to be held on April 20 at Nebraska Wesleyan University in Lincoln. The students aren’t required to go, but are encouraged to. They are able to adjust their projects with the feedback they got back from the district judges.

“It’s hard to get kids motivated to go on to the state competition and tweak their projects after they have already done it at the district competition,” said Mays.

Scholarship winners

Justice Malesker and Alexa Rowedder – $5,000 scholarship for their senior division Documentary on Title IX
Lacey Lurz – $4,000 scholarship for her senior division exhibit on Harvard University

Senior Group Website