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<p>DALLAS TWP. &#8212; Maybe it&#8217;s a Catholic School thing, maybe there was just a lot more testosterone in one team.</p><p>When the Wyoming Valley West students won as the &#8220;best overall school&#8221; in the junior (grades 6-8) division of the regional History Day competition, the middle-school teammates &#8212; including a lot of young men &#8212; roared, jumped up and pumped fists.</p><p>When Holy Redeemer High School won the same title in the senior (Grades 9-12) division, the students &#8212; most young women &#8212; rose with muffled joy and walked single-file to the stage.</p><p>Holy Redeemer got the best school title by nabbing three first-place medals, two seconds and three thirds, including sweeping the &#8220;Group Exhibit&#8221; category, with &#8220;Women of World War II&#8221; taking first.</p><p>Why that topic? Well, for starters, it was a four-woman team.</p><p>&#8220;It&#8217;s something we didn&#8217;t learn much about&#8221; in school lessons, Francesca Kalie said.</p><p>&#8220;It let us do some exploration of different figures in history,&#8221; Vivian Novitski added.</p><p>The two and teammates Kara Macintyre and Debra Scott &#8212; all sophomores &#8212; couldn&#8217;t stop grinning after they walked out of Lemmond Theatre at Misericordia University, where the winners were announced.</p><p>&#8220;It feels really good,&#8221; Scott conceded of their first win in the event.</p><p>About 170 students came to the campus from 10 regional schools, said coordinator Jennifer Black, an assistant history professor at Misericordia. The top three finishers in 14 categories will go to the state event, with winners there heading to the National History Day competition.</p><p>Along with group and individual exhibits on topics like women in World War II, space exploration, and Jonas Salk, students competed in website design, writing historical papers, producing documentaries and live performances re-creating people or events, including Amelia Earhart and Pearl Buck.</p><p>After a day full of presentations, performances and opportunities to sit in on multiple presentations by adults, the students gathered in the Lemmond Theatre to hear the winners.</p><p>The first medal went to Aiden Shymanski, a beaming 12-year-old dwarfed by the imposing stage, which sported the set for the University&#8217;s upcoming production of &#8220;You Can&#8217;t Take It With You.&#8221;</p><p>The Wyoming Valley West Middle School student had taken first place in the junior (grades 6-8) &#8220;Individual Website&#8221; category with a site about Joseph Priestley, an English clergyman and scientist credited with discovering oxygen.</p><p>It was Aiden&#8217;s second crack at the History Day event, &#8220;Last year I did an exhibit,&#8221; he said as he grinned for photos taken by his family outside the theatre. He said he picked Priestley because there was a local connection, sort of. When rioters burnt Priestly&#8217;s home in England, he eventually ended up in Northumberland, near Lewisburg, spending his last 10 years in a house that now serves as a museum.</p><p>Aiden offered no explanation for his decision to switch to the website event, but he did point out &#8220;it worked.</p><p>&#8220;Last time I came in third!&#8221;</p><style>
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<div class="neCaption">Wyoming Valley West seventh graders Anthony Severns, left, and Flynn Little work on collecting clues during a scavenger hunt at the Insalaco Hall on the campus of Misericordia University in Dallas during regional competition in the National History Day event. </div></div><div class="metaInfo"><photo0>https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/web1_scavengerhunt01.jpg</photo0><caption0>Wyoming Valley West seventh graders Anthony Severns, left, and Flynn Little work on collecting clues during a scavenger hunt at the Insalaco Hall on the campus of Misericordia University in Dallas during regional competition in the National History Day event. </caption0><photoCredit0></photoCredit0></div><div class="neFile"><img class="neImage" src="https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/web1_scavengerhunt02.jpg">
<div class="neCaption">Students look for clues during a scavenger hunt at the Insalaco Hall on the campus of Misericordia University in Dallas during the National History Day event on Saturday. </div></div><div class="metaInfo"><photo1>https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/web1_scavengerhunt02.jpg</photo1><caption1>Students look for clues during a scavenger hunt at the Insalaco Hall on the campus of Misericordia University in Dallas during the National History Day event on Saturday. </caption1><photoCredit1></photoCredit1></div></div>
<div class="metaInfo"><bylineMeta><p>By Mark Guydish</p><p>mguydish@www.timesleader.com</p></bylineMeta></div><div class="metaInfo"><shirttailMeta><p>Reach Mark Guydish at 570-991-6112 or on Twitter @TLMarkGuydish</p></shirttailMeta></div>

Holy Redeemer, Wyoming Valley West excel at regional History Day competition