What is the topic of your winning essay?
My project tells the story of Becky Herian, my first cousin four times removed, and her life as a rodeo woman at a time when female athletes weren’t as common or accepted as they are today. I talk about other rodeo women and how they broke barriers to female independence and equality such as advocating for women’s right to wear pants, play professional sports, and even vote.
What are your plans/dreams for after high school?
After high school, I hope to study biology and become a marine biologist. I have always been passionate about ocean conservation, and I want to do something that will change the world for the better.
How did your National History Day project influence you and your interest in the American West?
When people think of the American West, they often think of rodeo, but not of the role women played in it. I now know how important these rodeo women were to the fight for women’s rights, and I hope after watching my performance, others will too.
What advice do you have for future NHD students?
My advice to future NHD students is to pick a unique topic that genuinely interests them. I was so much more motivated to work hard and do my best on my project because I had fun in the process of creating it.
The View of Maya Chastang from the Center.
No doubt all of us can claim to have accomplished relatives, but when Maya Chastang learned about Betty Herian, her cousin four times removed, she could make a claim that few of us can match.
Maya has a relative who could ride a horse while standing on one leg.
For her prize-winning History Day project, Maya presented a re-enactment of Betty Herian telling her story and reflecting on its meaning. Reminiscing about Herian’s childhood on a family farm in Colorado, and her early ventures into the arena of local rodeos, Maya literally lent her own vitality and life force to bring her departed relative back into our company.
The movement for women’s rights has had many dimensions, and Maya’s project reminds us that we make a mistake when we narrow our attention to the most visible advocates. After all, women competing in rodeo offered inarguable evidence that the stereotype of women as inherently frail was itself inherently nonsense!
Exercising a mind adept at finding and establishing unexpected connections, Maya ties together the athletic assertion of women’s right to ride with the political assertion of women’s right to vote. Immersing herself in the history of “women’s independence,” Maya extends the trajectory of this history into her own future. As she says, she aspires to build on the example set by Betty Herian and hundreds of equally spirited women of the past, in order to “change the world for the better.”
Limits of the History Day performance space, and also limits of time and opportunity to learn a very strenuous new skill, made it unworkable for Maya to reenact Herian’s ease when standing on one leg while on horseback. And yet, having spent a couple of hours in the company of this extraordinary thirteen-year-old, I know that Maya is taking on life with a spirit, energy, and determination that will put even wilder feats within her reach. Why did she work so hard on her History Day project? Because, as she said in a statement that Betty Herian would have understood, “I had fun in the process of creating it.”
-Patty Limerick, Faculty Director and Chair of the Board