CCS Releases National History Day
Top Honors; Two Headed to Regionals

By TED MEBUST
COOPERSTOWN
Cooperstown Central School hosted its annual National History Day competition, organized by NHD Club Co-advisors Michelle Hitchcock and John Brotherton, at the Cooperstown Junior/Senior High School on February 8. This year’s student-led projects, ranging in subject from “The First Crusade” to “Robotic Surgery,” took a variety of forms, including websites, exhibits, documentaries and papers. In total, there were 40 projects completed by 7th and 8th grade-participants from the school. The theme of National History Day 2023, held across the country, is “Frontiers in History: People, Places, Ideas.”

For “Group Documentary,” the top finishers were Elijah McCaffrey, Shane Bradley and Hunter Kinly. Second place went to Carleigh Williams and Annika Murray, and third to Thomas Geertgens, Owen Nolan and Brian Zhang.

The top “Individual Documentary” finishers were Eleanor Walker in first place and Emily Menzies in second.
Pairings for “Group Exhibit” were Celia Begin and Brianna Stone, Leah Phillips and Sophia Johnson, Frank Pasek and Matt Duszynski, and Yousef Khedr and Ryan Barber, finishing first, second, third, and fourth respectively.

The top three for “Individual Exhibit” were Olivia Temp, Adam Cole and Henry Ayers.

“The NHD project is hard to think about at first when you’re starting off from scratch. But when you have put all of your hard work into it and you get first place in your category, you really appreciate it and get very excited and surprised on the announcements,” said Temp.

Kohlee Lepetich won for “Historical Paper,” with Andrew Olski coming in second.

John Michaely and Shamus Murphy took first and second, respectively, in the “Website” category, and notable performances for “Outstanding Research” went to Margaret Gentles, Alyssa Licthman, Yimdrulk Gyamsto and Jahnavi Mahesh.

The Catskill Regional History Day Contest, where qualifying CCS students will compete among area contenders for a chance to compete at nationals, will feature two CCS high school students, Pauline Kennedy and Elias MacLeish, in the senior division. Kennedy will enter in the “Historical Paper” category while MacLeish will compete for top honors in “Websites.” The competition will take place on March 11, 2023 at Cherry Valley-Springfield Central School.