Area Students Win Top Honors in Virginia History Day Competition

and students won top honors in their respective groups in the 2012 Virginia History Day competition, held recently in Williamsburg.

First place winners for their entry in the Junior Group Website category were Mekedas Belayneh and Michael Krause of Springfield Estates Elementary School for “What Hath God Wrought?” Deborah Witt is their teacher.

First place winner for her entry in the Senior Individual Exhibit category was Samantha Perlstein of West Springfield High School for “The Haitian Revolution.” Cathleen Boivin and Brian Plancich are her teachers.

Also winning awards at the Virginia History Day competition were:

• Karen Adjei of West Springfield High School, second place for “Black Panther Movement,” and Kris Kang of West Springfield High School, third place for “Dorothea Dix and the Asylum Movement” in Senior Individual Website.
• Drake Dixon and Andrew Han of West Springfield High School, third place for “Antibiotics” in Senior Group Website.
• Amanda Nguyen, Morgan Akers, and Maggie Rabe of West Springfield High School, second place for “China’s One Child Policy” in Senior Group Exhibit.
• Kylee Bush of Whitman Middle School, second place for “Suck It Up and Drive on Soldier—PTSD” in Junior Individual Exhibit.
• Madeleine Poisson of Fairfax High School, second place for “We Will Not Be Silent: the German Student Resistance” and Megan Kitts of West Springfield High School, third place for “Baroque Music” in Senior Individual Documentary.

Lauren Miller, Miranda Grier-Spratley, and Marjorie Mika of Springfield Estates Elementary School, won a special award—the Naval Order of the United States Award in Naval History in the Junior Division—for their entry, “The Revolution of the Steamboat.”

Students who earned a first or second place award are eligible to compete in the 2012 Kenneth E. Behring National History Day Contest June 10 - 14 at the University of Maryland, College Park.