Wylde Q. Chicken Award
2008

Eunice submitted this self-nomination:

I, Eunice How, a student and member of the class of 2008, would like to nominate myself for the Wylde Q. Chicken Award for the 2007-2008 school year. In Mr. Bill Sutton’s U.S. History class, Troy Smith assigned a research project on Indian removal. I chose to write a diary from the point of view of a Cherokee boy on the Trail of Tears. To make the diary as authentic as possible, I dyed the paper with tea and coffee, fastened the pages with plant material, and burned the edges of the diary. However, I got a little too carried away creating this project and completely set a page on fire. As I frantically tried to extinguish it, the flames spread and engulfed the whole page! Immediately I dropped the paper and watched in horror as the Cherokee boy’s recollections regarding camp along the trail and sketch of his traveling disappear. (Luckily nothing else was harmed because I did this in my backyard.) Unfortunately, I had to settle with plain white paper for that page and I dared not to let fire touch it again. To say the least, I was much more cautious when singeing the rest of the diary. I think this project deserves recognition because I truly enjoyed creating and then burning this research assignment. In addition, I gained a wealth of knowledge of the Cherokee Trail of Tears. When else can a student turn in old, wrinkled, crispy, brown and burnt fake diary and earn an A+?