North Decatur students bring back Chautauqua Day

Joe Hornaday
Greensburg Daily News

Fri, May 16 2008

— Longing for the days when traveling caravans would roam the country as part of an adult education movement known as a Chautauqua, North Decatur High School students recreated the period in American history with their own Charger Chautauqua Day.
At the turn of the 20th century, the Chautauqua movement was popularized with musicians, lecturers, politicians and artists journeying together in one forum under a sea of traveling tents. While North Decatur may not have had tents, the spirit of the movement was with the school as select students provided presentations on a wide variety of subjects.
To kick off the students’ portion of the day, social studies teacher and event organizer John Pratt thanked the two guest judges, Alison Bates and Kory Bickel, who are both talented opera singers and performed later in evening.
“We are thrilled to have you both here,” Pratt told them.
With the introductions out of the way, the students prepared themselves for their presentations. The first performance was a drum line led by Sam Pogue. Elizabeth Lecher was next and provided the packed library audience with a history of the Kentucky Derby. Lecher had recently toured Churchill Downs, the famous track where the race is held every year. While there, she was able to venture into the jockey’s headquarters and view the sauna the jockies use before a race to sweat off excess pounds. The presentation was timely, she said, noting that the Derby is coming up this weekend. For visual aids, Lecher showed a program from the year the infamous Barbaro won the race, along with a list of all past winners. As a tradition of the Kentucky Derby, Lecher also made pretend mint juleps and explained the process to the crowd.
Kristen Robbins, as part of her world history class, put on a fashion show of design styles throughout the years. Using models, Robbins discussed weddings of the 20th century, the hippie movement, the Renaissance, pioneer clothing styles, movie star dresses and outfits of the 1970s. The presentation was set to music with Robbins’s parade of models showcasing their outfits as she talked about the eras of dress.
In an effort to tie music into her sociology class, student Susan Lutterbach performed a piece of music by Mozart on her flute to show classical aspects of music. Next, she played a politically charged song on her guitar, “Dear Mr. President,” where she asked “how do you sleep when the rest of us cry?” The heartfelt song was met with tears in the eyes of some audience members.
Sociology student Craig Hellmich was the next performer. He seeked to uncover music and its influences on society. Hellmich talked about the Beatles, Ozzy Osbourne, and Toby Keith, and also played a song from each of the artists.
One of the more somber presentations was given by Erica Stevens, wherein she talked about teen depression. She mentioned the startling facts about depression, including one out of every eight teenager will suffer from depression. The causes of this, she said, could be from conflict at home, abuse of any kind, serious illness or a major accident, a life changing event, medications, divorce or family history. Stevens was brave enough to discuss her own battle with depression, and presented a video to show her story.
Psychology student Terry Gill was the next presenter. He performed his own song on his guitar. Conor Wilson, as part of the world history class, provided a powerpoint presentation about the myths of violence in video games. According to Wilson, the shooting at Columbine High School allowed nervous individuals to point the finger at violent video games for influencing the murderers’ behaviors. The nine studies that have been done on the subject have only proved people with aggressive tendencies are likely to enjoy more aggressive video games, he said.
“It’s not the government’s job to parent children,” Wilson said.
Student Cassie Cox then displayed a video of a trip to Pennsylvania she had taken in March, where she visited Philadelphia and Pittsburgh. Next was John Thackery, a student who had a video he had made with the topic of economic and human costs of World War II. The video highlighted events like the battle at Iwo Jima, the employment rate quadrupling in the United States during and after the war, and D-Day.
Skateboarder Austin Yazel showed his fellow students a skateboarding documentary showing himself and his friends enjoying nearby skateparks in the Midwest. Kris Jones, another video game enthusiast, gave a short presentation on how video games affect the economy, pointing out things such as how the industry is growing and, in turn, providing rising job opportunities.
Pratt was pleased with his students and their efforts for the Chautauqua Day events.
“The thing we love most is the diversity of the projects,” he said.

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