Executive Director of Yarmouth Historical Society Katie Worthing, left, awards North Yarmouth Academy senior Chris Noreika with a prize for his film on the Yarmouth Clam Festival. Contributed / Jane Strobel

On the evening of Nov. 20, Yarmouth Historical Society Executive Director Katie Worthing delighted in hosting an event that proved people wrong.

“One thing I think that I hear a lot in this job is that kind of general perception that kids don’t care about history. And one of the wonderful things about the Wellcome prize is that it’s just a way to just disprove that,” said Worthing.

The annual competition hosted by the Yarmouth Historical Society awards students who submitted exceptional historical research papers and films about a topic in Cumberland County. While the competition is open to any high school student in Maine, all winners of the Wellcome Prize for Student Historians this year live in the Yarmouth area.

“We have a lot of students who care deeply about history, are interested in pursuing it as at least part of their studies or their career, and they produce these great papers that show that kids these days really do care about history, they care about how it’s told and how they’re being part of the story of it too,” said Worthing.

That evening at the Yarmouth History Center, winning student historians presented their projects to a crowd of parents, friends and community members, either screening their short documentaries or giving an overview of their research papers. They then each explained their research methods and fielded audience questions before shaking Worthing’s hand and receiving the cash prize – $1,000 for first place, $500 for second and $250 for third.

Two films and three papers were awarded, with topics including the construction of Portland Observatory researched by Ethan Sweeney and the impact of Brunswick on the Civil War written by Sadie Swenson, both students at North Yarmouth Academy.

The 10-minute documentary “The Yarmouth Clam Festival” by Chris Noreika, 18, took the second-place film prize. Noreika is a senior at North Yarmouth Academy and interested in both narrative and documentary filmmaking. Last year, he won a Wellcome Prize for his film on Great Portland Fire of 1866. This time around, Noreika decided to focus on the history of the Yarmouth Clam Festival because of his nostalgia for the event he grew up attending.

“I’ve been going to (the Yarmouth Clam Festival) since I was very little and taking a video of it and researching it and hearing other people’s experiences and kind of capturing that and immortalizing it on video was really fun,” said Noreika.

From left, Adam Strobel, Ella Cameron and Kevin Carr of Yarmouth High School discuss their film “The Battle of Portland Harbor.” Contributed / Jane Strobel

“I love real life and events that are happening real world, and kind of showing those to the world, especially stories that are less documented, like stuff here in Maine, which may not be known by the wider U.S.,” he said.

Yarmouth Historical Society’s program committee selects the Wellcome prize winners, judging from a rubric of topic, citation, writing style in papers and visual language in films. They suggest and value students reaching out to their local historical society or archive to use primary sources in their research.

“I think a big part of our mission is to make sure we’re sharing local history with a wider audience and encouraging the next generation of student historians or historical society staff or museum staff to participate in local history at this level. It’s a great way to encourage kids to be part of that,” said Worthing.

The Yarmouth Historical Society created the Wellcome Prize in 2019 to incentivize and highlight student involvement in local history. It was named after Elsie Wellcome, a Yarmouth resident born in 1893 who was an involved community member and suffragette who died of influenza at the age of 25.

Adam Strobel, 16, Kevin Carr, 18, and Ella Cameron, 17, of Yarmouth High School won the first-place prize with their short film “The Battle of Portland Harbor.” Cinematic shots of the harbor encourage viewers to imagine the Civil War maritime conflict that occurred there as Carr narrates the events of June 1863 in vivid detail.

The trio said that through this project they learned not just about history but the technical aspects of filmmaking and the appeal of the documentary genre as well.

“It was really good for me, both from just learning about history, but also getting that experience of…a potential career path,” said Cameron. “I thought just overall, it was a really nice experience, and made me feel like I just learned more in general about the things that I’m interested in.”

“Going into filmmaking, you assume you want to be like, one of the big directors, the ones making all the big action movies. But focusing on history, I was like ‘I like that!’ I’d never thought about making a documentary. There are interesting events around where we live. Everyone around us every day is living their own life, and there are stories within that,” said Carr.

The student’s involvement with historical research not only shapes community perception of younger people being interested in history but changed how students themselves view their communities as they dive into its history.

Yarmouth High School senior Matthew Dressel fields questions about his research on the construction of Interstate 295 through Yarmouth. Contributed / Jane Strobel

Matthew Dressel, a senior at Yarmouth High School, won the second place with his research paper titled “Connection and Controversy: Yarmouth’s Opposition to Interstate 295.” He heard about the history of the interstate’s construction during his summer working at the Yarmouth History Center cataloguing scrapbooks that contained newspaper clippings about the upset over the construction I-295. He said he now thinks of this history often.

“It’s kind of weird taking 295 thinking of Grantville, which used to be a part of Yarmouth, which is no longer there. They got eminent domained. Everything is gone, so it’s kind of a little bit sad and kind of interesting to see what the town would have looked like, especially the waterfront, without (Interstate 295).”

Dressel, 18, is interested in continuing his studies of history and appreciated examining it on this hyper-local level.

“I really like history. I want to keep doing it. I think this project is just a really good way to, outside of school, get connected with your community and learn more about it,” he said.