Moose Lake History Club: State History Day 2013!

The History Club and specifically, the History Day girls, had a big day this last Saturday. The History Day competition is an intense research project (including a process paper and annotated bibliography) that focuses on a topic within a given theme. This year's theme was "A Turning Point in History". 30,000 students from across Minnesota complete projects each year. The regional competition was held in mid-March in Duluth. Moose Lake had four students compete at regionals this year. In her first year, Maddy Gamst did an exhibit board titled, "Dorothy Molter: The Root Beer Lady and the BWCWA." In their second years, Nicole Tekippe completed a documentary titled, "Sister Kenny: A Miracle for Polio" and Ellie Riihiluoma and Lauren Ross completed a documentary titled, "No Smoking or No Service: Establishing Non Smoking Restaurants in Minnesota." Ellie, Lauren and Nicole moved on to the state competition which was held this past Saturday at the UofM-Twin Cities. Only 1,200 students move on to the state competition and only 30 each in the documentary category.
At state, students present at first round judging that includes a number of questions from judges. Then, you wait. And wait. And finally, they project a list of students who make it to second round judging. (This is huge as all students who make second round will either place or receive honorable mention.) Second round judging is intense and an interesting process. They have three rooms. A first place room, which includes all those projects that scored first in first round judging, a second place room and a third place room. From there, two from the second place and one from the third place room flood into the first place room in which they are judged in competition to the first place projects. Nicole made second round and was placed in the third place room. Ellie and Lauren's project was placed in the first place room. They only had to show their project once. From the second and third place rooms, they only take three projects which then move on and need to be presented AGAIN. Nicole's project was selected to the first place room!! Essentially, what this means is that both projects were in the top 8 in the state!!!!! From judging, we headed to Williams Arena where the awards ceremony was held.
I'm soooooooo proud to announce that Nicole received an honorable mention (top 8!!) in the senior individual documentary category this year. Her documentary is awesome and has Minnesota connections. Lauren and Ellie received THIRD PLACE which is an ALTERNATE TO NATIONALS held in Washington, DC!!!! They competed in the senior group documentary category. Their video focused on Art's and Moose Lake as being a catalyst in the no smoking in restaurants movement in Minnesota. These are huge huge huge accomplishments and if you see the girls, please congratulate them. They truly put Moose Lake on the radar by placing these last few years, especially considering most History Day participants have History Day in their schools as part of their curriculum, not to mention most are huge metro schools like DeLasalle, the Blake School, Minneapolis South, etc. It's seriously crazy!! It was a very exciting day and I'm extremely proud of them.