The history of Cole Library, Mount Vernon High School, Mount Vernon softball and basketball teams and even things like The History of Zadar were among the topics explored by Mount Vernon High School Advanced Placement social studies classes.
Students have spent the first month investigating their topic and working on a presentation.
“This project is designed to be something that students can’t just Google all their answers,” said Maggie Willems, social studies instructor. “It’s designed to make them delve deeper into a topic and with multiple resources to present what they’ve learned.”
Willems said that every year, even with repeats of many projects, she still learns something new about these communities.
Hayden Gookin and Lucy Wischmeyer spent time researching the Mount Vernon softball team, a team they’ve played on as well.
One of the biggest things they learned – how many coaches have been with the team over the years.
“I also liked learning about some of the former conferences that Mount Vernon used to be part of, like the Eastern Iowa Hawkeye Conference which featured Mount Vernon competing with schools like Wilton, West Branch and Tipton,” Wischemeyer said.
One of the things they struggled with, Gookin said, was that not all of the stats books are available to go back far, especially before 2007.
“We discovered that stats books are missing for the team from 1973 to 2007,” Gookin said.
Zach Broomhall and Johnathan Winkler researched the Mount Vernon High School building.
The duo said their primary resources were Rick Elliott of First Street Community Center Building and the Mount Vernon Historic Preservation Commission’s website.
“We started with the history tab of the Mount Vernon School’s website, but quickly after that went to some of the resources they had listed to delve deeper,” Broomhall said.
For the duo, learning more about the First Street Community Center building and the move of the high school from that location was the most interesting part of the project.
Lyn Bauer learned about the history of Cole Library because she “really loves literature and reading and wants to be a librarian someday.”
The biggest thing she found in the project was how the library was remodeled in the past to be more modern.
“I really liked the look of the older library,” Bauer said.
Miranda Sellner learned about her church, Saint John the Baptist Catholic Church.
“It’s something I already knew quite a bit about, because I’m a member there,” Sellner said.
One detail she learned was the church was originally constructed in Lisbon before migrating to Mount Vernon when a new church was built.
Josie Bothell and Carolyn Rupe learned about the history of Mount Vernon Middle School.
“One of the things I learned in this project was that the Abbe Creek school was not a former middle school like I thought, but a school that served kids who lived in the country before they merged with the public school,” Rupe said.
They utilized the red book of Mount Vernon History as one of their primary resources on the history of the schools.
Natalee Glaister researched the history of the film “Zadar: Cow From Hell,” which was shot locally in Mount Vernon and Lisbon.
“It was a project a classmate had researched last year and told me how fun it was to learn about,” Glaister said.
She interviewed Kim Tucker and Bob Campagna as part of the project, as well as learned how the filmmaking went in the community.
“It really makes me want to see this movie presented again locally,” Glaister said.
MV students present on history
November 2, 2023
About the Contributor
Nathan Countryman, Editor
Nathan Countryman is the Editor of the Mount Vernon-Lisbon Sun.