Announcing the 10th Annual Nancy Carnegie Merrill History Award Contest

Nancy Carnegie Merrill

This year, the historical society is holding our annual essay contest and piloting a video contest, based on our popular and educational Exeter History Minutes. The topic for this year’s contest is “technology in Exeter's history” and students should choose a topic that relates to technological innovations that have been introduced in the Exeter area. Examine one form of technology that Exeter has experienced and answer the following questions: what was this form of technology; how did it change the lives of Exeter residents; was the change welcomed, or were they unsure of it? Students should not attempt to write the essay or create the video without receiving the requirements from their school’s faculty members or the staff of the Exeter Historical Society. (These can also be found at http://bit.ly/2016EHSEssayContest and http://bit.ly/2016EHSVideoContest.)

The deadline for both essay and video submission is Saturday, March 26, by noon. (The deadline for essay submission has been extended by a week.)

A panel of judges will choose the entries from each division (Middle School and High School) that best meet the criteria of outstanding achievement in format, historical accuracy, originality and style. The winners of the essay contest will each receive a $100 prize and the winning papers will be read by the authors at our annual Youth Night awards ceremony on Thursday, April 21 at 7pm. The prize for the video contest is to have the video entries posted and promoted through the historical society's social media channels; the winning videos also will be shown at the Youth Night awards ceremony. (Please note that there is no monetary prize for the video contest.) While the essay contest is limited to one entrant per essay, the video may have multiple entrants per video submission.

It is our hope that the Nancy Carnegie Merrill Award will foster an appreciation for our community and an interest in its past. The essay and video contests and Youth Night are generously sponsored by Service Credit Union.

For additional information, please contact Laura Martin, Program Manager. Materials can be downloaded here: 2016 Nancy Carnegie Merrill History Award Flyer and Materials (essay) and 2016 Nancy Carnegie Merrill History Award Flyer and Materials (video). The rubric that the judges will be using to evaluate the essay entries can be found here.