These Clovis students among nation’s best when it comes to portraying history

Three Buchanan High School students won first place for their project in the National History Day contest in Maryland.

Matthew Clark, Sydney Fox and Allison Hodge won first place in the Senior Group Performance category. Their project was entitled “Solidarity: The Polish People Take a Stand for Freedom.” This year’s theme for the contest was “Taking a Stand in History.”

The award was sponsored by the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the Clovis Unified students were designated as NEH Scholars.

More than half a million students from all 50 states including Washington, D.C., Puerto Rico and American Samoa and also students from international schools in China, Korea and South Asia take part in the annual contest. This year’s event was held at the University of Maryland’s campus in College Park.

Before being selected to take part in the national contest, middle and high school students create documentaries, exhibits, papers, performances and websites based on the year’s theme.

Students will begin working in the fall on their entries for next year’s contest, which has “Conflict and Compromise in History” as its theme.

Last year, Clark, Fox, Hodge and Buchanan students Austin Cozzi and Kelsey Ewing took second place for the same category. That year, their project was titled: “American Exodus: The Okies' Exploration, Encounter, and Exchange in the San Joaquin Valley.”

This story was originally published June 20, 2017 at 6:14 PM with the headline "These Clovis students among nation’s best when it comes to portraying history."