Nashua-Plainfield taking planeload to D.C. history competition

School qualifiers record six entries for National History Day

By Bob Fenske, Nashua Reporter Editor

A little before 3 p.m. Monday, Suzy Turner’s classroom was hopping.

A group working on a National History Day website huddled in one corner of the room. Tanner Striegel rehearsed his performance, and in another corner of the room, Morgan Kapping meticulously put together her exhibit board.

And maybe, just maybe, that says something about National History Day at Nashua-Plainfield. It’s a big deal, a really big deal.

“Morgan’s last day of school was more than two weeks ago,” NHD Advisor Suzy Turner said, “and the boys that are in here, this is their first day they didn’t have to come to school but they’re still here.

“As a teacher, to see them put this time in, to get excited, that’s pretty cool,” she said.

That dedication is also the reason little Nashua-Plainfield has become a National History Day power.

For 10 straight years, the school has been represented at the contest held on the campus of the University of Maryland in suburban Washington, D.C., but if anything, Nashua-Plainfield blew itself out of the water in 2018 — qualifying a school-record six entries for the contest that begins Sunday and runs through Thursday.

“When I really sit back and think about it — 11 kids, six projects — I have a hard time believing it,” Turner said. “I thought they all had a chance, but to get six through … wow, it’s been a little crazy.”

A National History Day contest has several divisions, including documentaries, papers, exhibits and performances.

Entries must finish first or second at a district contest in March and then do the same at the state contest in late April or early May to advance to D.C.

And when this year’s state contest ended, Nashua-Plainfield had plenty of reasons — six to be exact — to celebrate, as those advancing to nationals were:

• Group Documentary: Thomas Lindloff, Lucas Pierce and Isaac Swaney for “The Bonus Army: Compensation Creates Confrontation.”
• Individual Documentary: Drew Moine for “Jim Crow Must Go: President Wilson Commissions Commanders of Color.”
• Individual Exhibit: Morgan Kapping for “The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory: Fiery Conflict Sparks Compromise.”
• Individual Performance: Tanner Striegel for “Born of Conflict and Source of Conflict: Congress Adopts A National Anthem.”
• Group Website: Caleb Lines, Abby Poppe, Jayne Levi and Faith Carpenter for “The Iran Hostage Crisis: 444 Days of Diplomatic Failure.”
• Individual Website: Sammi Tolnai for “When Conflict Turns Deadly: The Rwandan Genocide.”

“I loved it, and then I started to think how much this was going to cost,” Turner said with a laugh. “But thanks to a great community, we’re set.”

Ask the national qualifiers what makes National History Day fun, and you will get a variety of answers.

“It’s definitely seeing everyone lose their minds five hours into a work session,” Moine said.

“I’d say it’s hanging out with friends, and the food,” Striegel said.

And Kapping will tell you that National History Day may be healthy at Nashua-Plainfield, but the food isn’t.

“It’s a lot of junk food, and I mean a lot,” she said with a laugh.

But it works.

“I know people say it’s like doing school work, isn’t it? But the kids get to pick a topic they want to pick and they get to dive into something that really interests them,” Turner said.

“I think they get a lot out of it. They know how to research, they know how to put together a bibliography — two things they’ll definitely use in college — but they have a lot of fun doing it.”

She paused and laughed.

“And they learn a lot about stress.”

The projects they took to the district contest in Waterloo a couple of months ago are no more.

They’ve been updated, revised and edited both for the state contest and the upcoming national one.

Kapping, for example, talked to one of the nation’s leading child-labor experts when she landed an interview with Joshua B. Freeman, a professor at Queens College, earlier this week.

Moine, for another, was working to get one more interview into his documentary.

But the work is almost done, and on Friday night, they will depart for the Twin Cities and then fly to Washington the following day.

There are veterans in the group. Kapping finished fourth in the nation a year ago while Lines, Levi and Moine also took part in the national contest in 2017.

“I think that helps,” Turner said, “and we kind of have our system down. We actually compete on Tuesday, but we’ll go to the junior (high) division Monday just to check out the rooms, test the technology and get a lay of the land. I think that helps, I think that helps calm the nerves.”

And whatever happens in D.C. — the competition is fierce with up to 120 entries in each division — Turner is proud of her students and Nashua-Plainfield’s National History Day program.

“We have a million stories we can tell,” she said with a laugh, “and most of them probably need to stay in my room. But when I see a student so excited because they scored this interview or found that document … all the stress and all the work, yes, in the end, it’s all worth it.”