SEQUIM – They’re awash in awards and inviting everybody for dessert and a kind of live, local version of a History Channel special.
Seven young Sequim historians, fresh from winning top prizes at the Washington State History Day competition on May 5, will entertain tonight.
They’ll show a movie, perform a couple of short plays, present exhibitions and share sweets homemade by their parents, all within a one-hour fundraising party.
Sequim has been sending students to the state’s History Day contests since 1999, and to the national event at the University of Maryland, just outside Washington, D.C., since 2002.
“We’ve placed in the finals every year,” said Todd Beuke, the Sequim Middle School instructor who’s shepherded many a student through the research and competition process.
Teenage historians from Sequim have taken second-, third- and fifth-place prizes at the competition in recent years.
Beuke has won an honor of his own this year: the 2007 Washington State History Day teacher of the year award.
The prize: His trip to Maryland, including tours of Washington, D.C., museums and monuments with his students, is paid for.
Beuke’s students, who also studied with Sequim Middle School’s seventh-grade history teacher, Tricia Billes, will be among some 3,000 competing in the national contests from June 10 through June 14.
First, however, they hope to inspire members of their own community with stories that fit this year’s History Day theme, “Triumph and Tragedy.”
