Young Historian Becomes Public Health Crusader    
                                                                                 posted 7/7/2005    

Eighth grader Robert Hamilton admits to an acute case of nerves before performing in the finals at National History Day competition in College Park, Maryland in mid-June. Who wouldn’t be nervous? This would be the final time Robert would take on the persona of public health pioneer Dr. Samuel Crumbine before a panel of History Day judges. This performance would determine his placement in the contest he’d been working toward for an entire year. Still, Robert knew if he could just engage the trio of judges with the first anecdote in his ten-minute performance, he could relax a bit. And so he did.

In that anecdote, Robert describes, in Dr. Crumbine’s own words, how he came up with the name for the flyswatter, originally called the “fly bat”, the simple tool that became a cornerstone of his campaign to prevent the spread of disease. (Dr. Crumbine was at a baseball game. The home team had a runner on third. The crowd yelled to the batter, “Sacrifice fly!” “Swat the ball!” The rest is history.)

Robert placed 14^th in the nation with his story of the Kansas doctor who outlawed the common drinking cup in the state and popularized the “Don’t spit on the sidewalk” public health clean-up campaign in the first decade of the 20^th century. One of Robert’s props was a period brick with the “don’t spit” warning. That brick figured prominently in two of Robert’s fondest History Day moments.

In a performance at a Topeka retirement home several months ago, a woman approached Robert saying that the brick reminded her of a banner she’d seen in China, with the “don’t spit” admonition translated into half a dozen languages – an indication of Dr. Crumbine’s global influence.

Robert was one of nine History Day participants invited to perform at the National Museum of Health and Medicine at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington. When he learned they didn’t have one of the sidewalk paving bricks with the anti-spitting slogan, Robert donated his performance prop to the museum.

Not only did Robert perform well onstage, he distinguished himself in the long-standing tradition of History Day button trading. The goal is to collect a button from every state. Robert has the distinction of having collected 49 of a possible 50 buttons. He came home lacking only the America Samoa button. That one is extremely rare one, since they sent only two representatives to Washington.

Robert says perhaps the most unexpected question from History Day judges was whether his study of Dr. Crumbine caused him to change his personal hygiene habits. Robert replied that he washes his hands more often now, but his room is still a mess!

Seventh graders Anna Hamilton and Sjobor Hammer won second place in the group documentary category at National History Day competition, with their examination of William Allen white’s battle against the KKK in Kansas, titled “Walking the Path of Duty: William Allen white and the Ku Klux Klan. Seventh graders Quentin Chediak, David Gast and Daniel Mandel represented Kansas and their school in the group exhibit category with their project, “Native American Code Talkers: Secret Military Code Changes a Nation.”

 National History Day is a year-long education program that engages students in the process of discovery and interpretation of historical topics. Students produce dramatic performances, imaginative exhibits, multimedia documentaries and research papers based on research related to an annual theme. These projects are then evaluated at local, state, and national competitions.