Living Legends of Cottonwood County - Competitive Award
The 11th Grade English and Social Studies students of Windom Area High School (WAHS), the Cottonwood County Historical Society (CCHS), and the American Legion (AL) Post #206 developed a project centered on collecting the experiences of living war Veterans by interviewing, writing, publishing in book format, and promoting the stories of Veterans from CC who have served in the military.
$300,000 the first year is for a competitive grants program to provide grants to preserve and promote the cultural heritage of MinnesotaThe Minnesota Humanities Center shall operate a competitive grants program to provide grants for programs, including but not limited to: music, film, television, radio, recreation, or the design and use of public spaces that preserves and honors the cultural heritage of Minnesota. Grants made under this paragraph must not be used for travel costs inside or outside of the state.
Students in both English and Social Studies will have to meet the “Proficient” Level for each MN Education Standard listed in the Project Goals. Each of the MN Education Standards will be measured by either the English 11 Teacher, Lisa Letcher, or the Social Studies 11 Teacher, Sheryl Hanefeld. Both English 11 and Social Studies 11 will be using the LLCC Project as their Summative Assessment.What will change is the focus of meeting the selected MN English and Social Studies Standards into the timeline submitted above. The focus in World History will be adjusted to go from the perspective of global awareness to local awareness; both of which are relevant to understanding the world today. Also, the focus will be more on the importance of sustaining history, the importance of understanding the lives of people and what has been sacrificed to help our country maintain its freedoms in relation to the world.
The 11th grade students at Windom Area High School (app. 50 students) interviewed app. 50 veterans from Windom, Westbrook, Jeffers, Mt. Lake, and Storden areas, and wrote their stories for publication. The families of both students and veterans were involved as were school officials, various veteran organizations, county-wide public libraries and the personnel and board at CCHS.The story about the grant and publication and distribution of the book were described in the Cottonwood County Citizen (newspaper) 3-4 times, the Westbrook Sentinel (newspaper) 1 time, and KEYC TV (Mankato TV station) 2 times.Book purchases were made inside and outside of county including by CCHS (225 books to be sold to public) and by a social studies teacher (30 to be used in classroom). Books will also be available for sale at Sons of Norway events and other events.