A McCallie senior who won first place at the National History Day state competition
When the National History Day state competition in Nashville ended, evidence that the 2023-24 McCallie student body is one of the brightest and most talented ever to hit the Ridge became even more difficult to dispute.
For the first time in school history, McCallie advanced 10 young men to the national finals at the University of Maryland in June. The school recorded three firsts and a second, and Grant Sutherland and Prince Hao each won special awards.
It continues a school year that has seen McCallie claim five state championships thus far in athletics (cross country, football, swimming, and wrestling in both duals and traditional) as well as dominating a regional science competition and several musical and theater competitions.
On Saturday, in addition to those advancing to NHD nationals, Sutherland took home the Best Project in African-American history for his paper “The First Should Be Last and the Last Should Be First: Nat Turner’s Rebellion as a Turning Point in the Antebellum South”
Hao, who won third place in Individual Website (only first and second advance to nationals), won the Society of Tennessee Archivists Awards for Archival Research for his piece “Beyond the Dams: Narratives of Change from the Tennessee Valley Authority.”
Of those 10 moving on to the University of Maryland, junior Cooper Wallace won a first in the Paper category for “Reconciliation and Revisionism: Confederate Cemeteries’ Impact on Historical Narratives of the Civil War.”
William Fowler ‘25 and Hudson Hazlewood ‘25 won in the Group Exhibit for “The Revolutionary Grateful Dead.”
Fellow juniors Alex Johnson and Alex Dermodyrmady won the Group Website category for “United States on Trial: Media and the End of the Vietnam War."
Finally, the senior quintet of Shawn Huss, Turner Lie-Nielsen, Jack Searby, Drake Williams and Arthur Wu took second for their Group Performance “Contras and Crack: America’s Mixed Bags.”
Said Dr. Duke Richey, chair of the History Department, of these performances: “The thing that makes me proudest of this group is that they just kept working away on their projects with each round of judge's comments and their work got stronger. All of them are very good students, top students in the classroom, but as the great Terry Evans used to say, ‘Hard work beats talent when talent doesn't work hard,’ and these are talented guys who work very hard, which is a killer combo.”
To that point about hard work, both Wallace (first in Paper) and Fowler and Hazlewood (Group Exhibit winners) were second in the regional competition prior to the state.
Wrote Wallace in an email concerning his win: “I've been given a huge honor to win and to advance. It's a great feeling to get credit for something you've immersed yourself in and worked on and tweaked for what feels like forever. It also means I have to put my nose back to the grindstone, which is something I'm preparing for now and looking forward to.”
Asked how much work he believes he’s already put in to win the state, Wallace wrote, “I started working on the paper at the beginning of December, and had done a bit of research the weeks prior. If I were to guess how many hours I've put in, including all the tweaking after regionals, I'd say it'd be around 35-40.”
Searby estimates his group of five seniors have worked 60 hours total on their project, which took on something extra because they were all seniors.
“As seniors, this NHD project was sort of our academic last hurrah,” he noted. “This was our last chance to work together on something, and I’m really proud that we were able to advance to nationals. I’m just happy I got to work with my friends and produce something that we can be proud of, that teaches people something at the same time.”
Though McCallie has never before sent 10 to the nationals, there has long been a kind of culture in place for success in this competition.
“Our history program is very strong with some really incredible teachers,” said Richey. “Dr. Salvatore Musumeci — who taught all of these guys in AP World before they took AP U.S. from me — has them prepared to start doing high quality research right out of the gate on Day One in my class. They think like historians, not just high school history students. They think about how arguments get built. They are like upper-level history majors in college. Sal is also heavily involved with the NHD afternoon activity and gave these seniors, especially, critical feedback all semester.”
There is also impressive history regarding those alums who now teach it elsewhere. Pulitzer Prize winner and former Newsweek editor Jon Meacham now teaches history at Vanderbilt. Joe Crespino teaches at Emory. Tyler Richard is on Texas-Austin’s faculty. John Crum is at Berea.
Said Richey, “If you want your son to be a student of history who knows how to do research and to write, then coming to McCallie these days is kind of a no-brainer.”
According to Wallace, it all starts with Richey, however.
“Dr. Richey has been a great mentor and encourager throughout the entire process,” Wallace wrote in his email. “He has given me feedback, suggestions, and encouragement while also letting me explore the topic and my writing style. At the same time, he allows for space and independence, which makes me proud of my work being entirely mine. Without Dr. Richey's encouragement, my project would not have been anywhere near its current level, nor would it exist to begin with.
Searby similarly praised Richey, saying, “Dr. Richey was absolutely essential to this project coming together. I’m not exaggerating when I say we couldn’t have done this without him. He helped us refine our idea, provided us with guidance on how to approach judges, and encouraged us to keep going when we were dragging our heels.”
And while most of the group celebrated their success by stopping at Chipotle before, in Searby’s words, “taking a big nap on the bus home,” Wallace had more work to do.
Part of the Volunteer Youth in Government conference for that whole weekend, which was being held just a couple of blocks away on Capitol Hill from the NHD competition, Wallace said as soon as the awards were announced, “I quickly took my medal and trudged those couple blocks back up to the Senate chamber and got back to mock legislating.”
And just in case anyone thinks this excellence from the History department is a one-time event, part of a larger 2023-24 McCallie victory parade, Richey believes there could be more to come in the future.
“The current juniors are exceedingly strong, and I know that the sophomores right behind them are, as well,” he said, knowing that half of those advancing to the nationals are juniors. “So, look out for next year, too.”