Oskar Schindler will be in the spotlight at the National History Day competition June 12-16 as the focus of Powell sixth grader Alexa Johnston’s website project.

Powell Middle School students who earned an A on their research project in sixth grade social studies teacher Amanda Johnston’s class qualified to go to the regional History Day competition in Greybull on March 9.

“History Day is actually a nationwide competition,” Amanda said. “So schools all over the country participate in History Day and the cool thing about it is they get to pick a topic of their choice. So History Day comes out with a theme every year, and this year, it was debate and diplomacy. Kids could choose literally anything under the sun that fit into that theme that they were interested in.” 

For History Day competitions students can submit a website, visual display, write a paper, perform a play or create a documentary.

“I based it off of the hanging garden so I had little things of yarn with paper leaves on them hanging all over and I did little pastel bricks,” Aly Morrow said of her display of the Hanging Gardens of Babylon.

Alexa was inspired to look further into Oskar Schindler after seeing “Schindler’s List.”

“The topic was debate and diplomacy,” Alexa said. “So I did a project on Oskar Schindler — it was a website and we used his inner debate for the big part and then we used his diplomacy for how he solved that inner debate.”

For the initial trip to regionals on March 9 in Greybull, 16 students from Powell Middle School participated: seventh graders Alexa, River James, Elizabeth Halberstadt, Sean Gallagher; and sixth graders Aly Morrow, Alaja DeFoe Love, Piper Bradish, Rylan Gillett, Charlotte Seddon, Bailee Gallagher, Landon Petersen, Bailee Kraft, Claire Hultgren, Vivienne Dodd, Lily Watts and Tempie Day. For the trip to the state competition in Laramie, 11 of the 16 attended.

In order to progress to the national competition, which will be held virtually, students had to place either first or second in their category at state. 

Alexa was able to place second for her website. Fellow classmate Morrow did not progress but received the Wyoming Archeological Award and the $200 scholarship that came with it. Amanda says that students can earn scholarships of up to $3,500 in financial awards to attend the University of Wyoming.

“I’m really proud of all of the kids that did History Day, and the support of the middle school staff and Mr. Rohr [who] helps to make it happen every year,” Amanda said. “It’s awesome that we have a community and I think it’s also worth mentioning too. It’s pretty cool that every single year we have kids from Powell that are qualifying for state in the last three years.”