SEQUIM — School’s out for summer, and teacher Tricia Billes of Sequim is starting her vacation with $5,000.
You might think she’s considering a cruise, or Disneyland — but only if you hadn’t heard about Billes’ latest trip.
She went to the University of Maryland at College Park, just outside Washington, D.C., to National History Day with a group of her Sequim Middle School students, just as she does every June.
This time, Billes won the award presented to one history teacher out of the entire nation, the Public Broadcasting System prize for innovative history education.
“I’d heard I was one of the eight finalists, so I knew I had a chance,” Billes said last week.
“I know also that the [finalists] out there are all really good people; all really amazing.”
So at her winning moment June 17, she still thought to herself: “Did they just say my name? I was laughing and crying . . . I mean, wow.”
I mean, wow, could also be a response to Billes’ plans for that $5,000 that comes with the PBS award.
“I’m going to buy computers for my classroom,” she said.
Billes used to have two machines in her room; her students worked them hard to produce documentary videos for their History Day projects.
Many have gone from the local competition to the state and national contests with documentaries edited on those Sequim Middle School computers.
And this June, Sequim students Bill Koenig, Wesley Gilchrist and James Reis made it to nationals at the University of Maryland.
Gilchrist and Reis took sixth place in the country for their project, “Lessons of Failure,” about the Tacoma Narrows Bridge collapse on Nov. 7, 1940, just four months after the suspension bridge was built.
Billes bought one of her two classroom computers about five years ago; now both have died after a period of deterioration, which meant torturous waiting for the young users.
She’s looking forward to having new computers, she said, so her students can devote their time to creating projects instead of fighting with technology.
Billes has been winning grants and awards at the local and state level since she got involved with History Day a decade ago.
And her summers have usually been given over to historical travels, to places such as Philadelphia and Berlin, Germany.
Billes is spending this summer closer to home, though, developing curriculum for her eighth-graders and visiting her grown children around the West.
And she’ll celebrate the nation’s birthday in traditional fashion: by getting together with friends and family.
Todd Beuke, the seventh-grade history teacher at Sequim Middle School, is easily as enthused as Billes is about her PBS prize.
“She’s very deserving,” he said.
“Her biggest asset is the amount of energy she puts into her kids,” staying after school and working nights and weekends.
“She always goes way above and beyond.”
And Billes, 56, has always credited her students for her energy.
“I really care about my kids,” she said.
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Sequim-Dungeness Valley Reporter Diane Urbani de la Paz can be reached at 360-681-2391 or at diane.urbani@peninsuladailynews.com.
