Student essay contest returns with earlier heads-up

The Kootenai County Historic Preservation Commission (HPC) has formally announced its annual essay contest for middle and high school level students who live in Kootenai County and who will be enrolled in grades 6-12 at the start of the 2015-2016 school year.

Competition will be at two levels: middle school level (grades 6, 7 and 8) and high school level (grades 9, 10, 11 and 12). Public, private and home school students are eligible to participate. First, second and third place winners in each level will receive a cash prize of $200, $100 and $50 respectively.

The HPC is announcing the contest, in its second year, before the end of the current school year in direct response to feedback received after last year's contest from teachers and from parents who homeschool their children.

Many of them asked for more time to incorporate the contest into their lesson plans for the next school year. The earlier notice also gives students much more time to research their chosen topic in greater detail.

"We agree with the teachers and parents that the early announcement will result in greater student participation and better research into the topic they choose to write about," said Robert Singletary, HPC Chairman. "We're confident this will translate into much greater awareness, knowledge and appreciation of Kootenai County history for all of us who are privileged to live here."

The HPC's first annual contest was announced in August 2014 with a deadline for essays to be submitted by Oct. 31 - allowing only a little more than 60 days for students to pick a topic, do the research and submit their essay.

Despite last year's short notice, the HPC was pleasantly surprised by the results. "We received many, high quality essay entries from all sectors ... public, private and home-school" said Skip Fuller, HPC member and chairman of its student essay contest committee. "We were delighted to get essays from students living in both urban and rural areas throughout the county. Three of the four public school districts serving Kootenai County and the vast majority of private schools had students who participated. Although there were only three home school student entries last year, two of them won second and third place in the high school level category. We'll have the whole summer to improve our outreach to students, teachers and parents this year."

The theme of this year's contest is "Preserving Kootenai County's Historic Properties" including buildings (e.g., schools, churches), structures (e.g., bridges, lookout towers) and sites (e.g., former town sites, early roads and trails). Students may choose to research and write their essay about one of more than forty historic properties located throughout Kootenai County.

The list of historic properties from which students may choose and the contest's detailed rules/guidelines can be found on the Kootenai County website: www.kcgov.us. "Participants should read and follow the rules and guidelines carefully," advises Fuller. "Judges will be looking for organization and attention to detail as well as content when scoring the essays."

For more information, contact Fuller at diski@live.com.