SBCSS News and Press Releases

Three County Projects Advance to History Day Nationals

2005-05-10

SAN BERNARDINO – Two projects from Fontana Unified School District and one from Upland Unified were California History Day winners and advance to the national competition in June.

The winning projects from San Bernardino County at the state competition, which was held May 5-8 in San Diego, were:

Matthew Guerra of Almeria Middle School in Fontana in the Junior Individual Documentary category for his project titled, “Ernie Pyle: Communication in History – Key to Understanding.”

Allison Jones of Upland High School in the Senior Individual Exhibit category for her project titled, “Thomas Paine: Drafting the Language of Revolution.

Gasper Muela, Roger Portillo and Martin Diaz of A.B. Miller High School in Fontana in the Senior Group Exhibit category for their project titled, “The Pony Express: Communication Across a Divided Nation.”

The three state winning projects will compete at the 25th annual National History Day event at the University of Maryland on June 12-16. There were about 2,000 students who competed at the state championship.

Two other projects from San Bernardino County were runnersup at state and alternates to nationals. The runnersup were:

Ivan Cisneros and Diana Luna of A.B. Miller High School in Fontana in the Senior Group Exhibit category for their project titled, “London Coffee Houses: Grounds for Communication.”

Marlon Rojas, Sunny Lominario, Jasmine Causor and Jorge Trujillo of A.B. Miller High School in Fontana in the Senior Group Documentary category for their project titled, “Painting a New Identity: Diego Rivera Communication Through Art, Understanding the Dignity of Mexican Culture.”

The Rojas-Lominario-Causor-Trujillo project also won the Herbert Nikirk Award for visual arts in history.

Also, the Cisneros-Luna project won a special award for excellence in the use of geography.

In addition to the three national qualifiers and two alternates, five other San Bernardino County projects were finalists – judged to be among the top 10 percent of entries in their round. Those projects were:

Billy Brahams of Sequoia Middle School in Fontana in the Junior Individual Exhibit category for the project titled, “Navajo Code Talkers Create an Unbreakable Code.”

Jonathan Chen of Upland High School in the Senior Individual Website category for the project titled, “Beethoven’s Message: Music and Romanticism.”

Michelle Digon and Nicole Wojtowicz of Upland High School in the Senior Group Website category for the project titled, “World War II Communications: European Decoding of Nazi Messages.”

Caitlyn Hynes of Pioneer Junior High School in Upland in the Junior Individual Exhibit category for the project titled, “Nu Shu: Sound of the Silenced.”

Kali Knudsen of Canyon Crest Elementary in Fontana for the Individual Poster category for the project titled, “Slaves Communicating Freedom.”