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The Keweenaw National Historical Park is inviting high school age students to showcase their knowledge of Copper Country history with its annual Local History Smackdown.
It’s set up like a spelling bee and students can join the competition as individuals or as a team, and rather than properly spelling words, they will be asked to answer questions regarding the Keweenaw’s past.
KNHP’s Brian Hoduska said, “It’s a lot of fun and there’s a $1,000 scholarship for the winning team to split amongst them.”
Topics range from child labor to fishing, geology and company towns, crime, prisons, historical monuments and many more—all things Keweenaw.
Hoduska said, ‘The questions are Copper Country local history, our geography, and we consider the Copper Country for this purpose Keweenaw, Houghton, Ontonagon, and Baraga Counties. So, there’s four counties and we’ve had schools from almost all of those counties represented at times at the Smackdown.”
The registration deadline is Thursday and all high school age contestants are welcome to join. Church groups, scouting groups, and all other youth groups are encouraged to enter.
“We’ve tried to design it to get progressively harder and they are drawn from certain local histories and we provide the kids a list of resources that we draw questions from,” said Hoduska.
The event will take place at 7:00 pm on Thursday April 26th at the Calumet Theatre and is open to the public.
Hoduska said, ‘There are questions ranging from historic mining here to historic logging. It runs the gamut.”
Registration information and other details are available at www.nps.gov/kewe
