As the National History Day competition wrapped up, Minnesota’s 60 competitors took home an array of awards, including two gold medals, one silver medal, a special prize, and several other top finishers.

Minnesota’s delegation included students from around the state, who competed against students from across the nation. While the competition is usually held in Washington, D.C., the 2021 National History Day contest moved online for the second year, due to COVID-19, with the award ceremony on Saturday, June 19, shared via a livestream from the National History Day website. 

The students, representing grades six through 12, presented exhibits, papers, documentaries, performances and websites that showed off months of research based on this year’s theme, “Communication in History: The Key to Understanding.” 

The top three national finishers in each category earn monetary awards. First place winners receive $1,000, second place winners receive $500 and third place winners receive $250. National History Day also recognizes one outstanding state entry in each division, junior and senior, with a medal.

Medal winners are:

• Sasha Allen, Eden Prairie High School, Eden Prairie. First Place, Senior Individual Documentary, “Don’t Believe Your Eyes: How Falsified Visual Media Built the Cult of Stalin”
• Sam Kellar-Long, Helena Squires Mosher, and Mae Wrigley, Open World Learning Community, St. Paul. First Place, Senior Group Performance, “Reagan’s Martin Luther King Day: Miscommunicating a Legacy” 
• Nico Allen, Central Middle School, Eden Prairie. Second Place, Junior Individual Website, “‘The Greatest Adventure in Advertising’: How the Committee on Public Information Sold War to the American People and the World”

Other top finishers from Minnesota:

• Ayla Bornzstein, Murray Middle School, St. Paul. Fifth Place, Junior Individual Website, “‘We Can [ALL] Do IT!’ Communicating Women’s Empowerment from World War II to Today 
• Aedea Winter, Winter Academy, Hermantown. Fifth Place, Junior Individual Performance, “Wartime Communication in the Military: Mail = Morale” 
• Natalie Miller, East High School, Duluth. Fifth Place, Senior Paper, “Our Bodies, Ourselves: How the Boston Women’s Health Book Collective Communicated Women’s Health in a Time of Little Understanding” 
• Zoe Campion and Elsa Carlson, Open World Learning Community, St. Paul. Sixth Place, Senior Group Documentary, “The First Lady of the Black Press: Ethel Payne and Communication in Journalism” 
• Alice Long, GG Thomas, Maeve Zilka, Maggie Bergeron, and Mary Jensen, Nativity of Our Lord School, St. Paul. Ninth Place, Junior Group Performance, “Communication Misinterpreted”

Other award winners from Minnesota:

• Natalie Miller, East High School, Duluth. Outstanding Affiliate Entry in the Senior Division, Senior Paper, “Our Bodies, Ourselves: How the Boston Women’s Health Book Collective Communicated Women’s Health in a Time of Little Understanding” 
• Aedea Winter, Winter Academy, Hermantown. Outstanding Entry in the Junior Division, Junior Individual Performance, “Wartime Communication in the Military: Mail = Morale” 
• Ayla Bornzstein, Murray Middle School, St. Paul. Women’s History Special Prize, Junior Individual Website, “‘We Can [ALL] Do IT!’ Communicating Women’s Empowerment from World War II to Today”
• Sasha Allen, Eden Prairie High School, Eden Prairie. National History Academy Scholarship, Senior Individual Documentary, “Don’t Believe Your Eyes: How Falsified Visual Media Built the Cult of Stalin”

Honorable Mention Awards are presented to entries that ranked in the second place in the first-round of judging. While these entries were not eligible for the final-round of competition, their outstanding scholarship is recognized as Honorable Mention:

• Cecelia Erickson, Central Middle School, Eden Prairie. Honorable Mention, Junior Individual Documentary, “38 Questions: How One Survey Ignited a Voice, Sparked a Movement, and Changed our World” 
• Ronny Hustvedt, Salk Middle School, Elk River. Honorable Mention, Junior Individual Documentary, “The Duck Stamp Story” 
• Elsa Wogen, Isabella Wittwer, and Van Nguyen, Princeton Middle School, Princeton. Honorable Mention, Junior Group Documentary, “Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood: Teaching Children Communication through Television” 
• Ava Krocheski-Meyer, DeLaSalle High School, Minneapolis. Honorable Mention, Senior Individual Documentary, “Mni Sota: The U.S.-Dakota War of 1862” 
• Danchau Le and Daphne Kleinschmit, Columbia Academy, Columbia Heights. Honorable Mention, Junior Group Website, “Navajo Code Talkers: The Unbreakable Code” 
• Emma Ambrosi, East High School, Duluth. Honorable Mention, Senior Individual Website, “The Photography of Ansel Adams: The Key to Understanding the Importance of the American Wilderness”

Throughout the week of the contest, several Minnesota students were recognized in project showcases from sponsoring institutions:

• Taylor Fairbanks, Como Park Senior High School, St. Paul. Senior Individual Exhibit, “A Fight for the People’s Land,” showcased in the Smithsonian National Museum of American History via the Smithsonian Learning Lab 
• Aedea Winter, Homeschool, Hermantown. Junior Individual Performance, “Wartime Communication in the Military: Mail = Morale,” showcased by the National Women’s History Museum 
• Zoe Campion and Elsa Carlson, Open World Learning Community, St. Paul. Senior Group Documentary, “The First Lady of the Black Press: Ethel Payne and Communication in Journalism” showcased by the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture

For more information visit the website at www.mnhs.org/historyday.

About National History Day in Minnesota
National History Day in Minnesota is a co-curricular historical research program that builds college readiness and communication skills for middle and high school students. Each year 27,000 students from more than 250 schools statewide participate. The program is a partnership of the Minnesota Historical Society and the University of Minnesota, College of Liberal Arts.  

Program support is also provided by the Legacy Amendment’s Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund through the vote of Minnesotans on Nov. 4, 2008. 

The Minnesota Historical Society is a nonprofit educational and cultural institution established in 1849. MNHS collects, preserves and tells the story of Minnesota’s past through museum exhibits, libraries and collections, historic sites, educational programs and publishing. Using the power of history to transform lives, MNHS preserves our past, shares our state’s stories and connects people with history. Visit us at mnhs.org.