PINEDALE – Following a successful showing at the district History Day competition in Jackson on March 8, three Pinedale Middle School students and 11 Pinedale High School students advanced to test their work against the rest of Wyoming at the state competition that will be held April 9-10 at the University of Wyoming in Laramie.

High school students who advanced in the senior division include junior Jamie Rellstab, who was awarded third place for a paper, along with sophomore Nile Debebe, who took second for an individual documentary. Juniors Haley Boulter, Tacy Kunard and Magen Rohrer worked together and took third for their exhibit, while fellow juniors Brooke Hornberger and Bailey Schupp teamed up and took second for their group documentary.

Seniors Aisha Auradou and Lynora Anderson earned first place in their performance piece, while juniors Jenna Roadifer and Loveena Winkelkotter took third overall for their performance.

Middle school students who advanced in the junior division include eighth-grade students Zoe Griffin, Sydney Jensen and Reese Noble.

This year’s theme is “Taking a Stand in History,” with projects focusing on individuals who went against the grain to impact history. To advance, students had to finish in the top three of their respective category.

Students in Mitch Irrgang’s eighth-grade social studies class took about a month to work on History Day projects early in the year, and if students wanted to delve deeper into their projects to get them competition-ready, they were free to do so.

“These girls all came in on their own to work on it,” Irrgang said.

Jensen and Noble teamed up to put together a documentary regarding Project Wagon Wheel, which proposed the use of nuclear weapons to extract gas underground in the Pinedale Anticline, and the project took first place.

“We basically talked about the people who set up and stopped them from doing that,” Noble said. “The Wagon Wheel Information Committee was formed and they stood up and got the project cancelled.”

The pair said they were connected with the piece, as they knew people from Pinedale involved in the issue, including grandparents. They conducted four interviews with locals who had lived through the event and looked through old newspapers for research.

“We were really surprised we did so well,” Noble said.

“We couldn’t see any other documentaries,” Jensen added, hinting that they weren’t sure how they stacked up among the competition.

Griffin’s paper, “Lewis Hine: Taking a Stand Through Photography,” covers the work of Hine, who used his camera to capture the harsh reality of child labor and used those images to create child labor laws.

She spent more than four hours over the course of three weekends, along with time after school going through books and websites to find information and images to use in her piece.

She learned of Hines when Irrgang showed students various topics online, with one of Hine’s photos connecting with the student.

“It had an amazing impact on me,” she said.

Irrgang says having both middle school and high school students participate in History Day is a great way to prepare for work required in college.

“It gets them ready for college and in-depth bibliographies,” he said. “They learn a lot of new things and how to put it all together.”

Projects that place in the top two at state will advance to the national competition on June 11-15 at the University of Maryland in College Park, Md.

Irrgang thanked BOCES and the Sublette Museum Board for helping out with financial costs to travel to competitions.