By Anna Guido
Enquirer contributor

Courtney Wittekind, 13 ,left,and her sister Casey, 16, arrange some display boards on Courtney's Junior Individual exhibit about Fort Ontario in their Mason home. (Michael Snyder photo) | ZOOM |

MASON - Casey Wittekind likes cheeseburgers, VeggieTales, music without profanity and American history.

"As dorky as it sounds, history is a lot of fun," said the 16-year-old Mason High School senior and a fourth-year state finalist at this week's National History Day competition in College Park, Md., near Washington, D.C.

Casey and her 13-year-old sister, Courtney, a seventh-grader at Mason Middle School and a first-year state finalist, left for College Park Saturday. They will spend several days touring the nation's capital and several hours defending their history projects before a panel of judges from universities, museums and federal agencies.

The Wittekind sisters are among nine Greater Cincinnati students who qualified for nationals. The others are Taylore Che, Mercy Montessori School; and Katherine Buckingham, Emily Rock, Katie Kitchin, Mandy Weger, Andrew Wehling and Vidya Venkataramanan, all of Sycamore High School.

National History Day culminates a yearlong promotion of the study of history in grades 6-12. Teachers are trained to move students beyond textbooks and to expand their classrooms into libraries, museums and archives.

Students conduct extensive research related to an annual theme, then present their findings in the form of museum-like exhibits, multimedia documentaries, dramatic performances or research papers. This year's theme is "Rights and Responsibilities in History.''

President Bush, Secretary of Education Rod Paige and historian David McCullough all have recognized National History Day for its impact on history education.

"I think it's a wonderful program. I'm so impressed with it," said Jill Wittekind, mother of Casey and Courtney. "Casey is already writing bibliographies at a college level and she knows how to do research at libraries and at historical societies in other cities. She knows how to get out there and find things."

Wittekind, a school nurse at Mason Intermediate School, and Jean Muetzel, a librarian at Western Row Elementary, initiated the program for sixth-graders in Mason this year. It had previously been available for seventh- through 12th-graders.

Wittekind and Muetzel offered it as extracurricular activity and met about once a week.

This year, more than 2,100 students will compete.

Casey, whose project last year was voted best in Ohio, said she's "excited" about getting another shot at winning. But she's "more excited" about meeting the invited keynote speaker, Bush, whose career path she would like to follow.

"I want to double major in history and religion and minor in government, then study pre-law and go into politics," she said.

Her project is "Victoria Claflin Woodhull: The Responsibility of Candidacy Without the Right to Vote.''

Courtney's project is "Fort Ontario: WWII Refugees on American Soil.''

About the competition

National History Day competition is today through Thursday at the University of Maryland. Judging will be Monday through Wednesday. The awards ceremony, where President Bush is expected to speak, is 8:30-11:30 a.m. Thursday.

The History Channel, an event sponsor, will showcase the awards ceremony during a live Webcast on its Web site (www.historychannel.com) .

For information, go to the National History Day web site (www.nationalhistoryday.org) .

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E-mail annag1129@cs.com