By Dan Cosgrove
History Coach
Calhoun County students, chaperones and parents left early Sunday morning for their approximate 6 hour drive to the National History Day Competition at the University of Maryland.
Students were scheduled to compete in the Preliminary round Monday hoping to make it to the finals on Tuesday. Over 3,000 students from around the world will be competing this week.
Calhoun students competing include, Team Freedom - Darla Harrison, Alicia Mills, and Megan Harding and Team Salem - Shayla Wilson, Destiney Murphy, Destiny Wager, and Kaitlyn Toney.
Both groups will be competing in the performance category for small groups. Team Freedom's performance is called, "Freedom Riders, The Joan Browning Story," and Team Salem's performance is, "The Tragic Life of Bridget Bishop."
National History Day is sponsored in part by the History Channel. While some of the activities will be filmed and shown on the History Channel, it is unknown if it will be live or broadcast at a later date.
Students will meet with U.S. Representative, Shelley Moore Capito on Wednesday at the U.S. Capitol. Capito's staff will give students and entourage a tour of the Capitol building before meeting with her. The group will spend the day in Washington D.C. visiting various sites around the nation's capital.
A parade of states by the students and the award ceremony will be held Thursday morning, with students making their way back to West Virginia later that day.
Students want to express their gratitude to all the individuals who helped support this trip. In addition to the monetary support, the encouragement, praise and expressions of good will has truly been appreciated.
These kids have worked extremely hard over the past months. Since school has been out for the summer, the students continued up until Friday coming to school perfecting their project, with additional research, rehearsals and improvement of props.
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