AB Makes History!!!!

Our amazing AB has done it!

After months of hard work, she is going to Washington DC to represent ICS and Washington state at the National History Day Competition!!!

She placed FIRST this weekend at the state finals in the senior division for her performance on Jessie Benton Fremont!!!

Here is a run down of Saturday's events:

We woke up early in order to be at Green River Community College in Auburn at 9 am. But wait, before we got to Saturday she had to get to this state competition (see this blog post of Monday, March 16.)

AB performed at 10 am (first presentation of the day; judges were fresh). Her only goal: make it to the finals.

Despite being very nervous, she performed her scenes flawlessly and when the judges asked some interesting questions, she had good answers.

We then took the props back to the car and went to watch our neighbor's documentary. They were experiencing technical difficulties so tensions in the room rose but all worked out fine in the end. Next, we went to another building to see AB's four friends perform their group presentation on Nellie Bly. Their hard work showed and it was excellent.

After this, the waiting started. Lunch was awful (no really, the food was bad) and all were watching the clock for the 1 pm announcement for who would make it to the finals. 1 pm came and went and 2 pm came and went and the nerves were definitely jittery.

Eventually someone took the stage and was cheered even though they were only setting up the screen for the posting that was to be shown via a PowerPoint slideshow.

Finally, the posting was up - with a dark blue background - and no one could read it! So we watched as they changed the background on each page to white, followed by the gasps and screams reverberating throughout the cafeteria! Everyone pushed forward to try read the screen as the different divisions were posted and this was nuts! It took several loops through the slideshow before we figured out that all of our kids had made it to the finals. It was very exciting!

AB's time was very last at 4:15 so we had some more time to kill. We moved the car and took her props to another building. I went into the room early and watched the last two performances before hers; meanwhile AB, EB and Dad paced in the hallway. By the time she finally got into the room and started her presentation, it was close to 4:30. The judges were yawning and now I was a bit worried about her placement in the lineup. But again, her presentation was great even though she forgot one line and was worried about it; I kept reassuring her that no one but me knew she had left it out!

Next, we had more waiting but by now we were all very hungry so we left the campus to get some dinner; we didn't want to find out what the cafeteria had in store! The awards ceremony was scheduled to start at 6:30 with the doors opening at 6 pm. We were back from dinner and in our seats on the bleachers in gym by 6:05 and there was definitely a buzz in the air.

Well, 6:30 came and went and finally when the crowd was getting restless and starting a wave up and down the bleachers, the ceremony started. This part could have been very painful as they thanked all the volunteers, judges, teachers, etc. but they kept it moving very well.

The special awards were first and AB won $100 from the Doc Maynard Chapter #54-40 of the Ancient and Honorable Order of E Clampus Vitus for performance best representing Western heritage from 1850-1900. This was a great way to start the evening!

Once they handed out all the special awards, the first category for those going to Nationals was to be PERFORMANCES! We were all on the edge of our seats as they counted down from 6th place to 1st. Once they hit number 2 and Abby wasn't called, we were already screaming!! Abby crawled over all of us and headed down to accept her award from Captain History!

While she was gone (they took pictures on the other side of the gym), her friends won 1st place in the group performance category! As Abby returned to her seat and high-fived all her friends, she dropped her shoe down the bleachers! We were then ALL insanely giggling, trying to figure out how to get it back!

Next, our neighbor who had had more technical difficulties with the school's equipment in his final round, came in 1st in the documentary category! Just proves three back ups are a good thing to bring! Here he is receiving his medal.

Once the presentations were over, we were able to take a few pictures and then it was back to the bleachers for a detailed info meeting about Nationals. It's a good thing most of it is online or written down because I'm not sure we all heard it that night!



Finally, we headed home, stopping to get a celebratory McFlurry (GB had bribed EB to stay with ice cream…we had two cars and he and dad could have gone home early.) They were both really glad they stayed and EB is now talking about participating next year (the theme? something like Inventions/Innovations in History – sound like EB?)

The DC event is Saturday Jun 13 – Thurs Jun 18 at the University of Maryland in College Park. Right now, Grandma B (the inspiration behind the whole concept) and I are planning to be AB’s chaperones.

We have a very large contingent from AB’s school going. Last year, only our neighbor went from ICS with a second place finish for his documentary. This year, in addition to AB and her four friends, there are a couple of 8th graders who won for their Jr Div group performance. There is another group that came in 3rd in the Sr group performance and they are alternates but probably won’t go as dropping out of this event just doesn’t happen! Anyway, there are lots of talented kids at this school!

So that was our weekend! We are very proud of AB and now we have just about enough stress to carry us through the end of the school year...woohoo!

If you want more info, visit this link for National History Day.