Palm Avenue holds first History Day

There were several Sweepstakes winners at this year's Palm Avenue History Day, and they will continue on to the county competition Feb. 22 in downtown Bakersfield.

The event was held on Dec. 19 in the school's gymnasium. This year's theme was "People Who Made a Difference."

Sweepstakes winners included Nicholas Contreras, who won the Seventh-Grade Individual Exhibit category. He worked on Project Red Tails, about the first Black pilots trained in Alabama to be fighter pilots for the Army.

The next sweepstakes winner was eighth-grader Camila Almanza, whose project was on one-armed professional pitcher Jim Abbott.

Another entrant was for Eighth-Grade Group Exhibit, which included Dvanie Caban and Leah Mealy. Their project was on Hector P. Garcia, who was a Mexican-American surgeon who overcame language barriers to obtain his PhD at Santa Clara University, where he is a professor.

Two other categories jumped to the county competition because there was no competition in their category.

In the Performance category, Emilie Garza's subject was Golden Gloves heavyweight boxing champion Jack Johnson.

And a historical paper written by Gwyneth Kelley will profile Francisco Jimenez, who was known for his work in migrant education.

The Richard Reding Gymnasium was filled with tables topped with display boards outlining each student's topic. The boards were filled with background information, family information and any feat that made their subjects unique, focusing on the theme.

Several of the students went beyond the basic research by contacting their subject or a family member and obtaining personal information about their subject.