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42 Oregon Students Qualify for National History Day®
Competition to be Held near Washington, D.C.
Portland, OR – May 5, 2016 – Forty-two students from across Oregon have qualified to
advance to the National History Day® competition after successfully submitting their work
at Oregon History Day this past Saturday, April 23. The students who qualified to
advance in the competition received first or second place in their category.
Each year, one project is awarded Best Entry at Oregon History Day, and all members of
the project group receive round-trip air fare to Washington, D.C. for the Kenneth E.
Behring National History Day® Contest, which will take place at the University of
Maryland at College Park campus June 12-16, 2016. This award is made possible through
generous grant funding from Joseph E. Weston Foundation, Marie Lamfrom Charitable
Trust, the Herbert A. Templeton Foundation, and the H.W. and D.C.H. Irwin Foundation
This year, Jake Sprenger from Helix High School received top honors for his
documentary “The Common Touch: Woody Guthrie’s Encounter with The Bonneville
Power Administration.” Learn more about this little known piece of Oregon history on The
Oregon Encyclopedia website.
Each fall, OHS kicks off the Oregon History Day program alongside over half a million
students across the country. OHS Curator of Education Kristen Pilgrim works closely with
educators throughout the state, and students use the OHS Research Library and digital
assets like the Oregon History Project and Oregon Encyclopedia to conduct research on
the annual theme. The 2016 National History Day® theme is “Exploration, Encounter,
Exchange in History,” and students can present their final project in the form of a paper,
website, exhibit, performance, or documentary, and can work individually or as a group.
At the national competition, scholarships will be awarded to select students, and
approximately 100 students will take home cash prizes between $250 and $5,000 for
superior work in a particular category of judging. For more information on National
History Day®, visit www.nhd.org.
A full list of winners at the 2016 Oregon History Day contest includes:
Junior Level
City
School
Student Name
Entry Type
Entry Title
Medford
St. Mary's
School
Lauren Meyer
Exhibit
Los Alamos: The Town that
Never Was
Eugene
Oak Hill School
Katrina Carrier
Exhibit
The Rise and Fall of
Rajneeshpuram
Portland
Stoller Middle
School
Claire Brimhall, Diem Han
Nguyen, Ritika Saripalli,
Abigail Schipper
Exhibit
The Effect of the Cold War on
US Foreign Relations
Portland
Stoller Middle
School
Felix Tse, Geoffrey Gu
Exhibit
Marshall Nirenberg:
Deciphering the Genetic Code
Portland
Stoller Middle
School
Anwesha Mukherjee
Documentary
Diego Velazquez: The
Encounters of Art and
Diplomacy in Spanish Politics
Eugene
Oak Hill School
Lily Fitzharris, Mark
Fitzharris
Documentary
Taiping Rebellion
Medford
St. Mary's
School
Finley Cox, Chase Sullivan
Documentary
Jane Goodall
Portland
Stoller Middle
School
Thomas Chen
Website
The Opium Wars
Eugene
Oak Hill School
Jared Charbonneau
Website
Jeanette Rankin: A Pioneer for
Peace and Equality
Portland
Stoller Middle
School
Website
Exploring Disease: Jonas Salk
and the Polio Vaccine
Portland
Stoller Middle
School
Website
Discovery of the Atomic Theory
Portland
Stoller Middle
School
Shamamah Khan
Paper
Exploring the Western Seas:
The Cultural Exchange and
Foreign Encounters of the Ming
Treasure Fleet
Eugene
Oak Hill School
Abe Luedtke
Paper
Electronic Music: Technology
and Musical Innovation
Rachel Cheon, Sofia Lee,
Nikhita Mathur, Lani
Waggoner, Angela Xie
Sreetej Kalapatapu,
Sachin Pillai, Abhigya
Sodani, William Xu
Senior Level
Madras
Madras High
School
Thyreicia Simtustus
Exhibit
Celilo Falls: Mid-Columbia
Indian Trade Network
Eugene
Oak Hill School
Samantha Kasitz
Exhibit
Space
Portland
Westview High
School
Sai Hitesh Vavilapalli,
Dawin Ye
Exhibit
Dmitri Mendeleev: The First
Explorer of the Elements
Helix
Helix High
School
Jake Sprenger
Documentary
The Common Touch: Woody
Guthrie's Encounter with The
Bonneville Power
Administration
Helix
Helix High
School
Mecaila Espey
Documentary
Wings Clipped, Liberation
Extended
Helix
Helix High
School
Caiden Marks, Bethany
Newtson
Documentary
The Historic Columbia River
Highway: An Engineering
Marvel Opens Exploration
through the Columbia River
Gorge
Helix
Helix High
School
Ashton Marks, Macey
Tullis
Documentary
Primate Pioneers: Ham & Enos
Exploring the Heavens
Medford
St. Mary's
School
Thanh (Emi) Tran
Website
The Manhattan Project: The
Making of the Atomic Bomb
Independent
Entry
Len Nguyen, Jessica
Yang
Website
Exploration, Encounter, and
Exchange in the California Gold
Rush
Oak Hill School
Ilsa Frazer, Sabrina Juarez
Honorato
Website
Eva Peron's Encounter with the
Feminist Movement
Independent
Entry
Theresa D'Silva
Paper
Catherine of Siena and Gregory
XI: The Journey of the Papacy
from Avignon to Rome
Eugene
About the Oregon Historical Society
For more than a century, the Oregon Historical Society has served as the state’s collective memory,
preserving a vast collection of artifacts, photographs, maps, manuscript materials, books, films, and oral
histories. Our research library, museum, digital platforms & website (www.ohs.org), educational
programming, and historical journal make Oregon’s history open and accessible to all. We exist because
history is powerful, and because a history as deep and rich as Oregon’s cannot be contained within a
single story or point of view.