Tim Leeds Havre Daily News tleeds@havredailynews.com
With school nearly out for the summer in Havre, students are wrapping up class projects in Havre classrooms like the display of the fourth-graders’ Montana history projects Tuesday at St. Jude Thaddeus School. As they have done for years, the students in Linda Ferguson’s classroom showed their reports and a visual display to their schoolmates, family and community members. Ferguson, the 2005 Montana History Teacher of the Year, said the students pick a topic, write their report, and create the display to go with it. Also on display in her classroom this year was a quilt made by the students with the help of retired St. Jude teacher Alma Seidel. The quilt was set up for a silent auction, the proceeds of which will benefit the St. Jude scholarship fund. Topics of the reports ranged from historical events like the Battle of the Little Bighorn and the creation of railroads through Montana to descriptions of ghost towns and haunted houses in the state to descriptions of Montana wildlife and geographic features. Janae Barthel, standing in front of a screen and pan to show how people panned for gold in the 1800s, said she decided to do a report on of the gold-mining town of Marysville because she liked the scary topic. “I like ghost towns,” she said. Taylor Weyers picked a similar topic the Copper King Mansion in Butte, which is reputedly a haunted house. She said she did some research to find what house to talk about. “I thought doing something haunted would be a good idea, so I looked it up on the Internet,” she said. Others had a simpler time choosing their topic Sheridan O’Neil said her report on grizzly bears in Montana was an easy pick. “The grizzlies are kind of my favorite animal,” she said. Kerrie Melle said she decided to do a report on Shep, the Montana sheep dog who attracted nationAl attention in Fort Benton when he spent every day for five-and-ahalf years waiting for his dead master to return on the train, because every time she goes to Fort Benton she visits the dog’s memorial and burial site. “I’ve been to Fort Benton a lot of times,” she added. The displays ranged from posters showing pictures and documents on a topic to dioramas Bridger Bibeau had a mockup of the Battle of the Little Bighorn while Rinnah Kinsella made a display of stalagmites, stalactites and columns to go with her report and posters on the Lewis and Clark Caverns. Wilbur Scheresky said he was impressed by the fourth-graders reports. “These are nice, very nice,” he said. “They put in some effort.”
