Hi All – We just returned from D.C. where Nia participated in a five day competition for National History Day. A while back I mentioned that all 7th graders at Nia’s school were required to participate in National History Day for a class assignment. They each completed an individual project using one of five presentation styles: report, exhibit (poster), performance, website, or documentary. In March they presented their projects to the community and 15 of the 35 kids were selected to advance to the state-wide competition in April. At State, Nia placed in the top two for her category, which meant that she got to represent Oregon at the National competition in June.
Each year has a theme and 2025’s was Rights & Responsibilities in History. Over dinner one night we were discussing topic ideas and I mentioned Guantanamo Bay. To my surprise, she had no idea what that was. As we told her more about it and explained its significance to 9/11, she became more and more intrigued. We were thrilled when she decided on that as her topic and even deepened our own knowledge about it’s long history as she progressed.
Nia was fascinated by how this topic dealt with rights and responsibilities for both the prisoners and the American government (who were trying to protect the American people from further attacks), and how those two groups’ desires often clashed. What seemed like a black and white topic to her at first became more and more grey as her project took shape. In fact, during her interview with Colonel Moe Davis, the lead Prosecutor for the Guantanamo Military Commissions from 2005 to 2007, she was shocked to learn that he came in eager to prosecute the terrorists but did a complete 180 and resigned in 2007 when pressed by the U.S. Government to prosecute using evidence obtained through torture. Ultimately, Nia chose not to take a side; instead focusing on showing as much nuance as she could on this complex topic. Here’s what she ended up with as her final version:
Pretty great, right? We are super proud of her.
The competition itself kicked off on Sunday, June 8th at the University of Maryland campus just outside D.C. (in College Park, MD). It was there that over 3,000 kids from across the U.S. (+ Guam, the Marshall Islands, and a few international schools) came together to complete. Not all who won at Oregon’s state competition chose to come, so the Oregon delegation ended up being around 25 kids.
The first day was mostly for check-in and the opening ceremony on the Mall. Sadly, the weather didn’t cooperate and only a limited number of people could fit in the alternative indoor location so we ended up livestreaming it from home. Not the best start, but such is life. Every state also had a t-shirt for their group and cute state pins that kids could trade. Of course that didn’t go right either, and we ended up being one of the few states that didn’t have their t-shirts or pins. We ended up getting ours mid-week and by that point most of the pin trading had happened already. However, Nia and her classmate Eloise were resourceful and still managed to collect 20+ pins even though they had nothing to give in return!
Monday was Nia’s presentation day. At 10 AM we reported to her assigned room where she played her documentary for three judges and answered ten minutes of questions. She didn’t want us in the room, so I didn’t see how she did, but she came out feeling really good about it. There were 10 different rooms, each with nine documentaries being shown. Only one from each room would advance to the finals and present to a new set of judges on Tuesday. At 7 PM that night the results were posted and unfortunately Nia’s documentary was not chosen to advance. She was super bummed, of course, but we tried to emphasize what a privilege it was to even get this far. We ended up watching the winner of her room the following day and it was very deserving of advancing. That one ended up getting 2nd place overall, so that made her feel better because at least she’d lost to a winning one. :)
With the competition officially behind us, we turned our attention to some sightseeing. Senator Ron Wyden’s staffer took our entire Oregon delegation on a tour of the Capital. It was incredibly cool, and the highlight for me was when we got to ride on the underground tram for Senators that takes them between the Capital and their office buildings. I didn’t even know that existed!
Adjacent to the Capital was the Library of Congress. I could have sworn we’d been there before, but Nick reminded me that I was confusing it with the National Archives. We were shocked at how beautiful the library was. Definitely worth a quick visit the next time you’re in D.C.
There are also two times a day that the reading room is open to visitors. If you can, time your visit with those so you can get a glimpse of this gorgeous space too.
On Wednesday we visited the College Park Aviation Museum (of course), where the Orville Brothers did some of their original test flights. Definitely a cool, little-known gem! We’d visited that one back when Nia was five but she didn’t remember it.
We also checked out the National Arboretum, which, if I’m honest, was not that impressive to me. It was a place we’d never been before though, which is rare given how many years we’ve lived in D.C.
On Thursday morning we woke up bright and early for the Closing Ceremony. It lost a bit of the excitement since we already knew Nia wasn’t in contention for her category. The event began with a “Parade of States” with each delegation marching in circles around the Xfinity Center of UMD’s campus.
Nia secured the spot of banner holder (no surprise there). You’ll see her in the lower left corner of this picture.
Following that, it was about three hours of awards being handed out. Oregon did not win anything but I was pleased to see Minnesota take home a couple medals! We capped off our time in D.C. with a few visits to old friends and then bid goodbye to our Nation’s Capital. We are now settling in to Minnesota for a month-long visit with my family. Feels good to finally relax into summer a bit.
