History Club Places Third and Heads to States

On 2 March 2019, Fleetwood Area High School’s National History Day Club won third place during regional competition at Kutztown University. The advisers are history teachers Becky Jarosynski and Todd Weiss.

Their entry, which was a presentation of the U.S.S. Indianapolis, according to Weiss, explained what the sailors experienced when they sacrificed themselves to help end World War II. The five members are Nisha Savino, Elizabeth Ramsey, Meadow Mosey, Hannah Kutz, and Jess Merzy.

Because of their success, Fleetwood’s NHDC team qualified for the state tournament! The tournament will be held in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. The exact site of the event is currently unknown.

“After researching our topic, we create this diorama. Ours was solely based on the U.S.S. Indianapolis, and when we get there, we place the diorama on the table, and the judges judge us on our art skills, facts, and other information. They ask us questions to make sure we know our facts so we can get credit for accuracy,” junior Nisha Savino said.

The theme of the competition was called Tragedy to Triumph.

“The display was designed in a creative manner with primary source documents to support the story. The students qualified for state competition, which is the second weekend in May in Carlisle, PA,” Weiss said.

“We did a lot of research, which took weeks to get this project as good as we could get it. There was a lot of information and a lot of good primary source documents that we used. Our main primary source was from a survivor of the incident. Because we’re going to state competition, we’re still adding things to the project,” junior Elizabeth Ramsey said.

The U.S.S. Indianapolis, according to History.com, was transporting materials needed for the atomic bomb that was dropped on Hiroshima on 9 August 1945. The materials were delivered on 26 July 1945. The ship was bombed by a Japanese submarine on 30 July 1945, and 317 out of the 1,196 men survived.

“The students put a lot of time and effort into completing the entry for our first competition. We were very pleased with the end result and have many ideas for next year’s exhibit as we learned a lot from going to the competition and seeing the other exhibits, as well as from the judges’ feedback. We are very excited to have placed third in our category and be moving on to the State competition in our very first year of competing,” history teacher Jarosynski said.