Mr. Leif Liberg Saint Mary’s Ryken High School Leonardtown, MD is 1 of 48 Selected
In honor of Veterans Day, National History Day® (NHD) is proud to announce the 48 teachers selected for its newest Silent Heroes® program, Untold Stories from the Korean War, sponsored by a grant from the Veterans Legacy Program at the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs.
One of the 48 Teachers selected is Mr. Leif Liberg Saint Mary’s Ryken High School Leonardtown, MD.
This fall, selected teachers have partnered with almost 600 students to research the lives of nearly 100 individuals who served in the U.S. military during the Korean War era, continued to serve their community and are currently buried or memorialized in a U.S. National or state Veterans Cemetery. This program prioritizes identifying underrepresented and untold stories.
Now until January 2025, teachers and students meet monthly with a historian Christopher Hamner, Ph.D., of George Mason University to study the Korean War and learn more about the experiences of underrepresented Veterans. Guided by eight research mentors, participants will use NHD-created materials to leverage databases such as Ancestry Classroom, Fold3 and Newspapers.com to research the lives and service of their selected Veterans. Connecting with local libraries and historical societies, teams will learn more about the communities where the Veterans and their families lived.
Finally, teams will analyze Official Military Personnel Files requested from the National Personnel Records Center. After conducting their research, teams will synthesize the information to tell the story of their Veteran’s life and service with a profile published on the Veterans Legacy Memorial and NHD’s Silent Heroes website. See a sample Silent Hero profile here.
“As we pause today to honor and remember Veterans of the U.S. Armed Forces, I couldn’t be more proud of the teachers and students researching Veterans of the Korean War through our exciting new program funded by the Veterans Legacy Program,” said Cathy Gorn, Ph.D., Executive Director of National History Day. “Studying local history and giving a voice to untold stories, particularly those of Veterans, is some of the most impactful work students and teachers can do with National History Day.”
After the teachers and students research their chosen Veterans’ lives, military service, and contributions to their communities this fall, student-teacher teams will visit their local national cemetery in spring 2025 to honor their Veterans and read eulogies at their graves. In addition to the profiles cross-listed on the NHD Silent Heroes website and the Veterans Legacy Memorial, NHD will also select 50 profiles and add video eulogies for the Veterans. See a sample NHD-produced video eulogy here.
The 48 teachers selected for this program represent 35 states and 45 U.S. National Cemeteries. NHD celebrates the teachers participating in this program and the Veterans they selected to research.
About National History Day (NHD): NHD is a non-profit organization based in College Park, Maryland, that seeks to improve the teaching and learning of history. The National History Day Contest was established in 1974 and currently engages more than half a million students every year in conducting original research on historical topics of interest. Students present their research as a documentary, exhibit, paper, performance, or website.
Projects compete first at the local and affiliate levels, where the top entries are invited to the National Contest at the University of Maryland at College Park. NHD is sponsored in part by the 400 Years of African American History Commission, The Better Angels Society, the Bezos Family Foundation, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Library of Congress, the Dr. Scholl Foundation, the Behring Global Educational Foundation, and the National Park Service. NHD has also received grant funding from the American Battle Monuments Commission and the Veterans Legacy Program. For more information, visit nhd.org.
