Kern County has no shortage of champions in a variety endeavors.
Few competitions, though, are more important than academic ones.
And over the weekend, three students, who happen to go to a school called Endeavour Elementary, became champions in the subject of history.
Cassidy Porter, Emma McNellis, and Jessica Jensen all took home top prizes at the statewide History Day competition in Riverside on Sunday.
“It feels really good because you known you went and you did something and you can tell people,” said Cassidy Porter, a 6th grader at Endeavour.
Of course, now Cassidy can also show people what she won at the statewide history competition. She took home a champion medal for her performance centered on Chinese cultural oppression and the ensuing Cultural Revolution under Mao Zedong.
But she wasn’t the only one from Endeavour to take home a top-prize from the competition. So did Emma McNellis, for her poster about the man credited for leading the fight against world hunger – Dr. Norman Borlaug.
“He saved millions of people's lives from dying from hunger by creating new crops and techniques,” said Emma, a 5thgrader.
Fellow 5th-grader Jessica Jensen took home a state runner-up medal for her work as well.
“My project was on the space race, which was the race to the moon between the U.S. and Soviet Union,” she said.
Of the three, only Cassidy will be going on to a national competition in June. That’s because you have to be at least in 6th grade to move on. Jessica and Emma are just 5th graders.
But at least they have the experience for next year. And, they say after tackling this history competition, other school projects are a breeze.
“They all seem so much easier than what I’d done before, because this is so much work,” said Jessica.
17 News would like to congratulate these three girls and all the other competitors from Kern Co. who took part in the History Day competitions.
