Students honored for writing history

This year’s Kids Write History Essay Contest award ceremony featured two Hill City Elementary School (HCES) students, Witten Gardner and Linden Bodensteiner. 

Kids Write History (KWH) is a fourth grade essay contest created by the West River History Conference (WRHC) in 2022. 

Julie Stoll, director of KWH and vice president of the WRHC, said, “As you would think, most things about history are old-farts like myself who are interested in history, but it’s a graying population who’s interested and has the time to do research and stuff. So we’re trying to get some different age groups involved.”

One time Stoll heard a “bigwig historian” say he won a history contest in third grade which started him on the path of history.

“That’s exactly what we want,” said Stoll. “This award-winning project is an outreach program of the conference. Since 2022, we have encouraged all fourth grade teachers and their students to participate in this classroom curriculum.”

To make it easier for teachers, Stoll said they decided to focus on fourth graders since that is when students study South Dakota history. 

The contest is open to all fourth graders in West River and into Wyoming, including homeschool groups, Christian schools, private schools, public schools and tribal schools. 

Stoll said, “I’m trying to canvas every fourth grade teacher I can get.” 

The contest has four categories including Biography, Family Legacy, Community Impact and Historic Account, and Stoll said the rules are simple. 

In Hill City, every fourth grade student was asked to participate in the essay contest. 

“We use the KWH essay as a great beginning of the year writing prompt. It gets the students talking about history at home and gives them the opportunity to learn more about their family members and contributions they have made,” said HCES fourth grade teacher Kelley O’Brien. 

Some students find a lot of information, and others are not able to find as much. However, O’Brien said, “the goal is to get the kids talking and thinking about the writing process.”

Much of the work is done at home, and students were given a list of questions and ideas to talk to family members about. 

The interview questions provided by the KWH contest include questions about relatives, family life, childhood, schooling, significant changes and advice for young people today.

“We feel that just using this as our initial writing prompt adds to classroom discussion and tells the story of what our families have done,” O’Brien said.

Once the essays are ready, they are scanned and sent to Stoll. At this time a committee of judges with backgrounds in teaching and English review the essays and select the winners. 

“We’re looking for not so much of phenomenal essays as interesting history,” said Stoll. 

Particularly, Stoll said they look at what the students learned from the experience and how it impacted them. 

Stoll said this year’s entries were good and about the same quality as last year. Some students sent in two sentences and other students submitted two perfectly typed pages. 

“It’s quite a wide variety. But our goal is met that the students have talked to their grandparents or they talked to their parents. That’s really the key that we’re trying to get them to do is engage with history,” said Stoll. “It’s important to know the impact it had on the kid. If they literally state it, that’s phenomenal.” 

HCES fourth grader Witten Gardner won first place with his essay “Cory Ginsbach” in the Community Impact Category which shared the story of “a person who greatly impacted the community/region.” 

Gardner said he was excited about the essay contest but had to think about who he would write about. He decided to write about his grandpa, Cory Ginsbach, because “he was nice.” 

“My dad helped me,” said Gardner. “It was kind of hard.” 

However, Gardner was glad he entered. After finding out he won, Gardner said, “I was surprised and happy.”

In his essay, Gardner wrote, “In evry comunity there is a person who inspiers people and pushes them to another level. In our comunity it was my grandpa Cory. He was an athletic director, a teacher and a coach.”

Ginsbach’s career in Hill City lasted 23 years. Gardner wrote, “His motto was, ‘Treat people as they are and they will stay who they are. Treat people as they could and should be, and they become who they can and should be.’”

Ginsbach passed away in September 2008 from ALS. Later a golf tournament was created to honor Ginsbach, and the money raised goes to scholarships. 

“I hope you liked learning about my grandpa,” Gardner wrote. “He was nice, kind and helped a lot of people. I want to make him proud and be nice and kind just like him.” 

Meanwhile, HCES fourth grader Linden Bodensteiner won first place with her essay “Hurricane Charlie” in the Historic Account Category for the “best record of a historic event.”

Bodensteiner was excited to hear about the contest “‘cause I knew I had a shot of winning.” 

After thinking about what to write, Bodensteiner decided to write about her great aunt Patty who survived Hurricane Charlie in 2003, saying, “I thought my aunt was very interesting.” 

Bodensteiner talked to her aunt on the phone and took notes. Then, she wrote her essay which she said was “kind of easy and kind of hard.”

Through the process, Bodensteiner said she learned “that you really need to be prepared for a hurricane.” 

When Bodensteiner found out she won, she said, “I was excited.” However, she said getting the award was a little scary because of all the people there.

Bodensteiner wrote, “In the summer of 2003 there was four hurricanes that started in the Gulf of Mexico and moved over Florida. My great aunt Patty said that of all the hurricanes that hit Florida that summer, Hurricane Charlie was the one that most impacted her.” 

Bodensteiner’s aunt and uncle prepared for the hurricane by buying bottled water and non-refrigerated foods because they knew the power would go out. They also boarded up their windows to protect the house from wind and water and had a generator ready. 

“Charlie was a category four hurricane and the highest rating is five. The winds went up to 150 mph. There was lots of water and people’s houses washed away. My aunt and uncle survived thankfully and their house was fine. They just had stuff to clean up and they went for three weeks without electricity,” wrote Bodensteiner. 

Bodensteiner’s aunt now lives in California saying hurricanes are scarier than earthquakes. 

Both Gardner and Bodensteiner were recognized at the WRHC by Stoll Oct. 4 at Crazy Horse Memorial and presented with a certificate and a $75 prize. 

Gardner’s teacher Mindy Nelson said, “I was so excited to hear about the two from Hill City that won. They worked so hard on their pieces, so it is great that they were able to recognize them formally.” 

“It’s always exciting to hear that a Hill City student has been recognized as a top writer in the region. This goes to show the emphasis we put on hard work, and all the students, not just the winners, put a lot of effort into their writing,” said O’Brien, Bodensteiner’s teacher. “We’ve done this prompt for three years now and each year Hill City fourth graders have turned out a great product, having a winner each of the three years.” 

Stoll said, “I hope this is the beginning of a real thirst and love for history.” 

More information about KWH can be found at kidswritehistory.com.