Do You Know Why I do History Day?

Two Words: Sister Gund. Sister is from Atlah High School in the City. At this year’s New York State History Day 2008 her students won first place in the group exhibit category. Sister left about 100 10-20 minute (slight exaggeration) messages on our voice mails as the contest day approached. She was making sure she had all her ducks in a row for her kids.

They won at the NYC contest. When their names were announced they sprung to the stage with screams and jumping, composed themselves when they received their awards, and immediately went to the back of the room where they jumped up and down and screamed more. When they become self conscious they covered their mouths and jumped more slowly. To put it mildly: They were excited!

So these are kids new to the program, with a teacher who is also new, but they threw down with the best in the state and through their personal dedication were awarded top honors!

It is such a pleasure to see the excitement and dedication of History Day parents kids and teachers. These peoplee are the reason I do History Day!

On other notes big props to Statewide Coordinator Tobi Voigt. She planned an amazing contest. For those of you who have never been it is basically an all out invasion of History Day Nerds and their families. We have a year round population of 2,000 and I would hazard a guess to say we had roughly that many folks here for the contest when all were counted.  We heard almost nothing but praise for the day. Tobi is my personal hero, and she is at the heart of making this an open kid friendly program that does all it can to inspire and facilitate the study of New York, American and World history. A big job but she fills the shoes.

To all the parents thank you so much. I hope I helped and I really hope I was polite at all times. At one point I was in the exhibit room when parents realized that I was an HD official person they descended on me likes sharks at a feeding frenzy with questions. It is a high stress day so I hope I helped.

Favorite question of the day. A very distinguished man approached me and asked “Do you know where the children are?”

My answer was of course “Everywhere you look!”

I sure hope he found them.

It is time to move on to Nationals. We have many downstate folks coming this year. Clarkstown and others dominated this year. Tobi and I and other NYSHD all stars will be staying in the dorms this year. We hope you all will join us there if you can. We plan some fun activities and great tours.

For any of you who are new and thinking about doing New York State History Day, you should. There are feelings of satisfaction on so many levels. Come be a part!