Dalton student wins state DAR essay contest

“The history of Christopher Columbus is widely acknowledged to be filled with gaps and inconsistencies, contradictions and misdirection,” was how Ethan Nelson began his local and state winning paper for the Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR) American History Essay Contest.

The competition is sponsored every year by the National Society of the Daughters of the American Revolution, and locally by the Fort Sidney Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution.

Nelson won both the local and state competition this year and his work has now been entered into the regional competition, which if he wins, will further his essay to the national competition.

“He’s a very intelligent young man,” said Carol Mason, Regent of the Fort Sidney Chapter. “He’s really talented in many areas.”

Not only is this Nelson’s second time winning first place at the state essay contest, but he also shows his smarts in local college classes.

The kicker: he’s only in 10th grade.

The Dalton native and homeschooler decided to enroll in classes at Western Nebraska Community College for the challenge.

“I’ve been taking a few classes up here at WNCC along with my regular high school classes,” said Nelson. “They are challenging and they offer more of a classroom experience, and I get to interact with the teacher and the other students.”

Nelson is currently enrolled in a college English class and an online health class through the college. He also active in a fitness class at the Cheyenne County Community Center.

“I had to go talk to the college counselor and I had my ACT scores and my grades and transcripts and I told her that I wanted to maybe take one or two classes this semester and she thought I’d be able to take them,” he said.

Nelson said that he learned of the contest through a family friend who is in the Fort Sidney DAR Chapter. His older brother also competed in the essay contest in previous years.

The competition is open to 9th through 12th graders and only two competed in the local competition this year.

The essay topic this year was “How did the Faith and Courage of Christopher Columbus give to Mankind a New World?”

Nelson submitted his essay on January 1 and found out he won the local competition and found out he had also won the state competition at the state DAR conference in Kearney.

“It’s limited in numbers of words and all the details,” said Mason. “They’re judged on English, grammar and punctuation.”

Nelson’s essay ended up being three pages and included a bibliography page.

The student admitted that writing the essay was a detailed process.

“I saw that at the Scottsbluff library they actually had the original journal writings of Christopher Columbus,” said Nelson. “So I read that to see what he actually felt each day and his actual thoughts as he was writing in his journal.

“That was my pretty much my main research tool. I also checked out a few other books, but that was the most helpful,” he said.

Nelson said that he wasn’t certain of the outcome, but that he worked diligently on the piece.

“I didn’t know for sure if I’d win because this was a really hard topic,” he said. “The topic was Christopher Columbus last year, as well. I’d done a lot of research but I wasn’t sure if I had covered it all.”

Mason called the topic’s rules “a little challenging” and “wordy” this year.

“It is a project that is too difficult for the majority of ninth through twelfth graders,” she said. “They either say they are too busy or just can’t handle it. They don’t want to go through that detail.”

Although Nelson said the essay took him weeks to complete, he said that the outcome was worth the extra work.

“It took about four weeks to complete it because of the research and actually creating the rough draft and editing it and then going through and citing all my sources in the bibliography,” he said. “But it’s definitely exciting and really rewarding.”

Nelson received a certificate from the Nebraska State DAR for his work and a $25 gift certificate to the Book Corner from the local Fort Sidney Chapter.

Mason said that members of the chapter were also working on purchasing Nelson a pin for his accomplishments as well.

If Nelson’s essay wins the regional competition it will be submitted to the national competition in July, according to Mason.