Students Work in the Summer

Some students at D.C. Everest spend their time collecting historical memories. Students are part of the Oral History Project which collects and publishes oral histories on a variety of topics. The student group has published twenty books since 1998 when they completed their first book on the Hmong migration for Wisconsin's Sesquicentennial. This summer students are working on a book about Wisconsin Women and Holocaust Survivors. Students do a variety of activites: collecting interviews, transcribing the interviews, editing the interviews, gathering photos from the interviewees, putting the interviews into a desktop publishing program called QuarkXpress, planning for receptions, marketing the books and keeping the website updated. Suzanne is one of the student editors. She stated, "I enjoy it. It's really interesting to hear peoples' stories and share them with other people." Ryan, another student editor stated, "We did 72 interviews this past school year, each about an average of ten pages - right now we're organizing them." In 2009 students won the prestigious Beveridge Family Teaching Award.

Wisconsin Civil War Wall

D.C. Everest students have created a moving Civil War Memorial Wall which commemorates the Wisconsinites who died fighting in the Civil War. Last spring a group of 8th grade Honors students embarked on this worthy project. Students wrote a grant and presented their proposal to the D.C. Everest Area Education Foundation. They received a small grant to proceed with their project. They then contacted the archivist Russ Horton, at the Wisconsin Veterans Museum in the hopes of locating a list of Wisconsin casualties in the Civil War. They were directed to a book published in 1915 entitled Wisconsin Losses in the Civil War. A parent volunteer coordinated getting the actual banners created which are hung on wooden frames. The Civil War wall has been featured the past two years at our annual Civil War Day. The Wisconsin State Geneological Society featured the wall at their annual Gene-A-Rama in LaCrosse this past spring. Additionally, the Marshfield Historic Preservation Society used it for their Marshfield Memorial Day Celebration. The moving wall can be used by any Wisconsin organization for a small fee ($75.00). Contact paleckson@dce.k12.wi.us or krisp8@msn.com