By: Dr. Andrew Yox, Honors Director
In a remarkable show of academic achievement, Honors Northeast scholars won all four 2019 Caldwell Awards for the freshman-sophomore-division essays of the Walter Webb Society, meeting last weekend in Corpus Christi. They also won the group Caldwell Award for $600 for their film project on Barbara Conrad, produced by Miguel Paco, beating university, and college entries. They also won the Webb Chapter Award for community colleges, largely for their film work. In addition, Presidential Scholar Hannah Dickson won third prize ($150) in the junior-senior division for her essay on Hispanic immigration to Mount Pleasant. The Webb Society is the collegiate auxiliary of the Texas State Historical Association, and the meetings of the two groups were held concurrently in Corpus Christi.
“There has never been anything like this since we started attending Webb Society meetings in 2009” notes Honors Director, Dr. Andrew Yox. “I believe we fielded our best group, and best group efforts, ever. Moreover we thank honors professors Hearron, and Ward for teaching us about biological pathways. We think we have developed a trenchant pathway for scholarship at NTCC, and thus, in turn, we thank a whole lot of people, including our community friends and donors, who have made this pathway possible.”
Cypress Bank Scholar, Miguel Paco, became the first student in NTCC history to accept two group awards at the spring Webb conference. Professorial judges were impressed by the Barbara Conrad film which Paco placed on YouTube, by Paco’s mastery of Adobe Premiere, his lip-syncing, and use of cut-aways. Judges also expected programs, press releases, and other documents relative to the project, and were impressed by the whole scope of the undertaking. Texas Heritage Bank Scholar Jordan Whelchel directed the film, and Presidential Scholar, Karla Fuentes ramped up the sound quality of this year’s film. The group, of course, remains indebted to Mary Carter Lloyd of Pittsburg who starred as Barbara Conrad.
The NTCC Scholar who judges thought had the best essay in the freshmen-sophomore division for the state of Texas was Olivia Griffin. Griffin’s work on Americans with Disabilities Act activist, Justin Dart, filled a whole new page in Texas history. As Texas A&M judge, Dr. Francis Galan noted afterward, “I didn’t even know before this paper that Justin Dart was even from Texas.” The comprehensive Texas Handbook Online, indeed does not yet feature Dart who Griffin showed not only inspired a new line of cowboy hats, but actively applied lessons from the civil rights movement that he had learned in Texas.
Olivia is the second member of the Griffin family of Pittsburg, Texas to have won a first-place Caldwell for the freshman-sophomore division. The first was Noah Griffin in 2013.
Other winners from NTCC included second-place Caldwell winner and recent Chitsey Scholar, Daniel Landaverde ($300), third-place winner Jacob Lambie ($175), and fourth-place winner, Verania Leyva-Garcia ($75). Landaverde together with Dickson recently presented their works on the Mount Pleasant Hispanics at the Mount Pleasant Library, and their presentations will be available soon as vodcasts on the honors website, www.ntcc.edu/honors. Lambie did his work on the subtle persistence of racism at the University of Texas into the 1950s and 60s, and Leyva was the film specialist on Barbara Conrad who wrote about the great soprano’s perfectionism.
Anyone interested in the ongoing scholarship of Honors Northeast is welcome to address comments or questions to Dr. Yox at ayox@ntcc.edu.
