By Dan Cosgrove
County Coordinator
Calhoun County had fifteen Social Studies projects represented at the Regional Social Studies Fair at Parkersburg High School Friday evening, March 21. Twelve of the 15 were recognized at the awards ceremony following the competition. There were a total of 96 projects from Calhoun, Pleasants, Ritchie, Roane, Wirt and Roane Counties.
Mason Siwicki led the Calhoun contingent with his first place finish in Division 1's World History category. This was one of the toughest competitive groups of the evening. His "The Evolution of LEGO" project was able to beat out projects on the "Chernobyl Disaster", the "History of the Automated Assembly Line", and "The Battle of Thermopylae". Mason is a student at Pleasant Hill Elementary School.
He will be competing at the state completion at the Charleston Civic Center on April 11th. Jesse Allen from Arnoldsburg Elementary School took a 2nd place in his Geography project, "The Iditarod." Also in Division 1, Calhoun took two 3rd place medals, with Josie Montgomery's Political Science project, and Dylan Sampson's Psychology project.
Honorable Mention medals (High Scores required) went to Makayla Jones and her Sociology project, and Lacy Hicks' U.S. History project. Also representing Calhoun County were Anna Walker with an Economic project, and Tysa James with her State and Local Studies project. Division 1 is comprised of students in 3rd through 5th grades.
Seven of the 15 projects were from middle school students. Tori Carpenter and Shelby Clawson earned 2nd place medals with their State and Local Studies project on "The Hatfield's and McCoy's." These students made multiple trips to the Logan and Mingo area for first hand research on their project. In fact, all students had to conduct comprehensive scholarly research to make it this far.
Kayla Carper's Geography project on the Bermuda Triangle earned her a 3rd place finish. Honorable Mention medals were earned by Cassidy Conley, Trenten Cunningham, Kole Jarvis, Michael Murphy, and Dakota Snider. Also on the middle school team competing was Donna Richards with her U.S. History project, "What was the Impact of 9-11 on the U.S.?"
All students who competed at the regional fair had previously won 1st place at the county level. Congratulations to all of them.
See earlier story CALHOUN STUDENTS HEADING TO SOCIAL STUDIES FAIR REGIONALS | 
