Middle and high school students from across central Nebraska submitted their History Day projects online for the district History Day contest this year. Following the 2021-22 theme of “Debate & Diplomacy in History: Successes, Failures, Consequences,” students entered projects on a variety of topics, with winners from each event advancing to the state History Day competition, with students eligible for competitive history scholarships to attend Hastings College.
A total of 25 projects received honors in their specific category. Four students received Hastings College history scholarships in honor of their projects placing in the top three overall.
Toby Kothe and Hayden Mays, both students at Hastings High School, received first place overall and $6,000 Hastings College Scholarships with “A Failure of Debate and Diplomacy: Woodrow Wilson and the League of Nations.”
Rebekah Reynolds of Hastings High School received second place and a $5,000 Hastings College Scholarship with “The Debate Over Fashion in the Gilded Age.”
Kian Schwarz of Hastings High School received third place and a $4,000 Hastings College Scholarship with “50 Children: A Rescue Mission to be Remembered.
Other top award recipients are included below, by division and entry project.
Top Award Recipients
Junior Division (grades 6-8)
Junior Group Exhibit
First Place: Lukas Armstrong and Mason Bolin of Red Cloud Junior/Senior High School with “Battle of Lexington and Concord”
Second Place: Kami Garman and Tyler Smith of Red Cloud Junior/Senior High School with “Trump Vs. Biden”
Third Place: Bridgett Lockhart and Kaylyn VanWey of Red Cloud Junior/Senior High School with “The 19th Amendment”
Junior Group Website
First Place: Josh Heldt and Dean Zimmerman of Red Cloud Junior/Senior High School with “Assassination of Abraham Lincoln”
Second Place: Lily Adams and Alyssa Shipley of Red Cloud Junior/Senior High School with “Abraham Lincoln on Slavery”
Third Place: William Rasser and Braedyn Snell of Red Cloud Junior/Senior High School with “Ban Vaping”
Junior Individual Documentary
First Place: Rebecca Schmidt of Hastings Middle School with “Prohibition: Trial and Error”
Junior Individual Paper
First Place: Jessie Bronson of Hastings Middle School with “Banning Books across the US”
Senior Division (grades 9-12)
Senior Group Documentary
First Place: Cara Ansbach and Rebekah Evans of Hastings High School with “The Picasso Problem”
Second Place: Brian Nguyen and Thomas Roberts of Hastings High School with “The Vietnam War: The Bad, the Questionable, and the Possibly Evil”
Senior Group Exhibit
First Place: Toby Kothe and Hayden Mayes of Hastings High School with “Diplomatic Failures of the League of Nations”
Second Place: Madisyn Hamilton and Johnny Whyrick of Hastings High School with “Debate of Roe vs. Wade”
Third Place: Drake Anderson, Braden Ochsner and Abhinav Srivastava of Hastings High School with “By Any Means Necessary: The Debate Over the Role of Malcolm X in the Civil Rights Movement”
Senior Group Website
First Place: Rylan Nordby, Jasmine Truong and Emma Ventura of Hastings High School with “CIA’s Human Experimentation: The Debate Over MK-Ultra”
Senior Individual Documentary
First Place: Lexi Benson of Hastings High School with “The Debate Over West Side Story”
Second Place: Carrie Brosman of Aurora High School with “Debates of History: The Battle For Jazz in Soviet Russia”
Third Place: Conner Wademan of Hastings High School with “The Diplomatic Use of The King James Version”
Senior Individual Exhibit
First Place: Rebekah Reynolds of Hasting High School with “The Debate over Fashion in the Gilded Age”
Second Place: Samantha Miller of Hastings High School with “The Fall of the Berlin Wall”
Third Place: Param Bhakta of Hastings High School with “The Debate over NATO: Is it Harmful or Helpful?”
Senior Individual Paper
First Place: Candice Donner of Hastings High School with “The Debate and Diplomacy of the Iranian Hostage Crisis”
Senior Individual Website
First Place: Kian Schwarz of Hastings High School with “50 Children: A Rescue Mission to be Remembered”
Hastings College is a four-year residential college that focuses on student academic and extracurricular achievement. Hastings’ student-centered initiatives include providing books, an iPad and a two-week study away experience at no additional cost. A block-style semester schedule allows professors and students to focus on fewer classes at a time and promotes hands-on experiences. Discover more at hastings.edu.
