Press Release: 05-02-2012

Waukegan High School will be represented by four history projects at this week’s Illinois State History Exposition in Springfield.

WHS students will travel to Springfield on Thursday, May 3, where their history projects will compete against history projects from across the state for a chance to advance to the coveted National History Day Competition this summer.

The Illinois History Fair is an education program that challenges students throughout Illinois to complete history projects either individually or in groups, on topics of local significance. More than 20,000 students across Illinois compete in one of four categories: research paper, documentary, performance and website. Judges score the projects on excellence in historical knowledge, analysis, quality of source material and presentation. Projects at the state-level have already qualified through local and regional competitions.

Students and projects representing WHS will be:

Michelle Johnson -- "Waukegan Race Riots: The Language of the Unheard" - Exhibit Category
Maria Pettis and Rodrigo Rogel-Perez -- "Ethnic Migrations: A Journey to Waukegan" - Documentary Category
Andres Vences -- "Waukegan and Motion Pictures" - Documentary Category
Rachel Coad, Angelica Arizmendi and Grecia Ramirez - "Scoopin Downtown Waukegan" - Website Category

“The students have spent countless hours reworking and revising their projects, and they should be commended for it. These are the top projects from across the state. To have four projects advance is outstanding,” said Mr. Josh Bill, a U.S. History teacher at WHS.

Email Contact: nalajakis@wps60.org