An affinity for bringing history to life has led a group of Thomas County Central High School to a national stage.
On April 13, the team of Megan Clark, Cameron Parker, Aubrey Miller and Stephen Sykes earned first place in group performance at the Georgia National History Day competition in LaGrange. They advance to this summer’s national championship.
“The state competition was more demanding than the school level,” Stephen Sykes, 17, said. “Seeing everyone bring their ‘A-Game’ made us work even harder and made us nervous at the same time. The state competition was overall an amazing trip we got to experience, especially because we won!”
Megan Clark, 15, says the team made numerous changes to its entry after the school level competition.
“We made drastic changes toward our set and costume design such as painting our set and buying new costumes,” she said. “Changes to our script were made as well. We were told to be more historically accurate, so we did and changed up some characters.”
The teens’ performance is titled “The Face We Know and the Anxiety We Feel: The Impact of the Murder of Emmett Till on American Civil Rights.”
“We chose Emmett Till as our topic because we remembered learning about him in seventh grade and thought he would fit very well into the theme for this year,” Aubrey Miller, 15, said. “We were very proud of our performance. However, we were very surprised to win first place. We weren’t expecting it!”
TCCHS NHD sponsor Brett James calls the group’s win a tremendous accomplishment because only two entries from Georgia proceed to the national level.
“One of the aspects that made their performance stand out was their exceptional acting skills,” he said. “These students are all involved in the [school’s] drama program, and it shows. They also did a great job of connecting the topic, Emmett Till's murder, to this year’s theme, ‘Triumph & Tragedy in History.’ While Emmett Till was senselessly murdered during the time of segregation, and his killers were able to get away with it, his death was not completely in vain as it helped encourage some of the most influential leaders of the civil rights movement, such as Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King Jr.”
The National History Day national competition is June 9-13 at the University of Maryland, College Park. To prepare the team will work with James to revise and strengthen their performance.