For a group of Ross Beatty high school and junior high students, participating in the statewide Michigan History Day competition isn’t about earning attention or glory.

It’s about getting connected with history, to see how events that happened nearly 100 years continue to affect the local community today.

In March, 19 Cassopolis students traveled to the Kalamazoo Valley Museum to compete in the Historical Society of Michigan’s district competition. The students constructed and presented miniature exhibits with the theme of “Famous Faces of the 1920s.”

Of those students, six were selected to advance to the state level, which is held this weekend at Saline Middle School. The students chosen were Brittney Prestly, for her exhibit about Amelia Earhart; Samone Williams and Jessie Bishop for their exhibit about Al Capone; and Tia Bush, Maggie Coyle and Brianna Matamoros for their exhibit about the history of piracy.

The two main Ross Beatty educators who helped get the school’s students involved with this year’s Michigan History Day event were social studies instructors Jeff Wernette and Erin Westrate. Westrate learned about the program last fall, and thought it would an excellent supplement to the material she was already teaching her class during the spring, she said.

“There’s a lot of opportunities here for students who are interested in science or math, but not a whole lot for social studies,” Westrate said. “I feel like our kids could use more of that. I went to high school here myself, and I would have loved be a part of something like this.”

In order to prepare their projects for the district competition, Westrate had her students look to historical sources outside the internet, in order to help develop their researching skills, she said. Students visited the local history branch of the Cass District Library, looking up old microfilms and literature to delve deeper into their subjects.

“We wanted to make history come alive for the students, to help them understand that the stuff they learn about in history class was real, and continues to have an affect on them today,” Westrate said.

The students who have been selected to participate in the finals this week have been working extremely hard to get their projects up to snuff, even working on half days, Westrate said.

“They have taken what the judges said about their projects at districts to heart and are applying it to their projects for state,” she said.

While Westrate won’t be able to make it to the competition this weekend, she said she is extremely proud the work her students have accomplished to make history spring to life.

“When your kids do something important, it’s better than when you do something like that yourself,” she said. “Watching them succeed and do well, it’s one of the best feelings in the world for a teacher.”