2008 Woodie Awards
Nine Early College students receive national awards
Issue date: 2/25/05 Section: News
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According to the HMC website, the HMC organization sponsors several conferences so that student delegates may learn about the U.S. government through role-playing experiences.
Last year, Early College was the first American school to be invited to HMC Europe in Paris, France. During this year's conference in San Francisco, Early College became the first school worldwide to be invited to HMC Asia next year in Bangkok, Thailand.
Throughout the conference students are members of the House, Senate, Presidential Cabinet, Supreme Court, National Security Council, and Press Corps. Students discuss and debate global issues and formulate policy first-hand.
This year Early College students earned nine of the 17 awards for which they competed, though they comprised about 10 percent of the students present.
History teacher Guy Ferguson shared his thoughts on his students' success.
"HMC offers a real chance to get kids involved in civic duty," said Ferguson. Most of the kids who go to HMC from our school are ninth and tenth graders, who then face eleventh and twelfth graders from competing schools."
Fergeson credits some of the success to each of the Early College participants being willing participants. "Our students all volunteer to go," he said. "Most of the students form other schools are required to in their HMC or AP government and politics classes."
Ferguson said that every year about 60 to 70 students compete from Early College for 20 to 30 spots in the national conference. Upperclassmen are given seniority, but everyone has the chance to prove him or herself.
"The kids who go to HMC are the perfect embodiment of what the Early College at Guilford is all about," says Ferguson. He stresses the concept of Early College students as being based on "merit over means." "Everyone who is here chose to be here because they wanted to," he says. "It's not about the money, the status, or the social scene. It's about the academics."
"On the whole, we had fun," says student participant Janelle Peterson, a tenth grader. I thought that the Harvard Students did an excellent job of moderating our session and I think that we did extraordinarily well. I hope that we can do even better next year."
"It would be great to compete locally," says Early College sophomore Horatio Thomas, winner of the Senate award, in hopes of starting a local HMC program at Early College. The program would challenge other area high schools to come and compete on Guilford's campus for local recognition. Thomas has been working with Ferguson to make the idea a reality.
When asked why a local competition would be appealing to the Early College, Guy Ferguson explained the concept. "Every once in a while I play chess against my 6-year old son as well. It's really fun to smash your opponent."
WEB EDITOR'S NOTE: Due to technically-based space limitations, the pictures (with captions) of Horatio Thomas, Steven Lim, Josh DeBottis and Graham Billings have been placed in the next story.
