Today will be the first day of judging for the 2014 Island-Wide History Day Senior Division for grades 9-12 at the Governor H.Rex Lee Auditorium starting at 8:00 a.m.

The American Samoa Humanities Council, local affiliate of the National Endowment for the Humanities and the American Samoa Department of Education has sponsored this annual competition since 2003.

The second day of the judging in the Senior Division will be tomorrow with the announcement of the top three winners of each category being named tomorrow as well. The overall winners from the Junior and Seniors will be announced this coming Friday, May 2.

The overall winners from the Junior and Senior Division will represent American Samoa at the National History Day (NHD) competition this coming June in College Park Maryland at the University of Maryland from June 15-19.

National History Day is a highly regarded academic program for elementary and secondary students. According to the NHD website, www.nhd.org, each year more than a half million students, encouraged by thousands of teachers nationwide participate in the NHD contest. Students choose historical topics related to a theme and conducted extensive primary and secondary research in libraries, archives, museums, oral history interviews and historic sites.

JUNIOR DIVISION

The Junior Division for grades 6-8 were judged last week, with South Pacific Academy leading the way, with three First place and two Second place finishes.

They were followed by Coleman Elementary that had one First and three Third place finishes. Leone Midkiff was able to earn two Second place and one Third place finish, while Pacific Horizons had a First and Second place, followed by Lupelele with one First and one Third place finish.

St. Theresa Elementary earned one Second and one Third, and the following schools had one place each:  or First place: Alofau-Aua and Manumalo Baptist Academy; Second place: Matatula, Manulele and Matafao; and Third place (1) each: Peteli Academy and Tafuna Elementary.

(Read names and categories of the top three Junior winners in each category in last Friday’s Samoa News.)