STATE WINNERS OF PRESTIGIOUS HISTORY DAY CONTEST VISIT WITH CONGRESSMAN LARSON

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: June 14, 2000

STATE WINNERS OF PRESTIGIOUS HISTORY DAY CONTEST VISIT WITH CONGRESSMAN LARSONWASHINGTON - An intensive study of a dramatic period in the nation's history earned four students from the Carmen Arace Middle School in Bloomfield first place honors in the State History Day Contest, and a chance to travel to Washington, D.C. to view America's history in person. During a visit to the U.S. Capitol, they found a very receptive audience in U.S. Congressman John B. Larson (CT-01), who is a former high school history teacher. Larson met with the students in his Washington office today.

The eighth-grade students, Jamie Bassell, Katherine Hypolite, Krystal Powell, and Rebecca Small, are part of the talented and gifted program at Carmen Arace. They performed their winning ten-minute historical play, "The Civil Rights Act of 1964," in the National History Day Contest on Monday, June 12 at the Smithsonian Museum. They placed first in the National History Day Contest in 1999, but did not place in the national contest this year.

During the six months the students spent preparing their State History Day Contest entry, they interviewed seven people, compiled 24 pages of primary sources through email, and reviewed sixty-two newspaper articles from the 1960s. They were greatly aided in their preparation by NETschools, which sponsored their trip and provided the laptop computers.

"As a former history teacher, I always get excited when I see students who are genuinely interested in some of the most important events in our nation's history. It was really a pleasure to meet these students because they did such a thorough job researching this topic," said Larson. "The amount of work they put into this contest is absolutely remarkable."

Their teacher, Billie Anthony said, "These students demonstrated creativity, industriousness and intellectual curiosity in their pursuit of this ambitious project."

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Photo of the Carmen Arace students meeting with Congressman Larson can be viewed under "photo album." ###