Dripping Springs ISD students Grant Gillum and Nora Gillum each captured state titles at the Texas History Day Contest on Saturday, April 5, to advance to the National History Day Contest.
Junior Grant Gillum, now a five-time state champion, presented his website, “The Price of Patriotism: The Evolution of Rights and Responsibilities for World War I Veterans”, to win the Senior Division Individual Website category. His faculty sponsor is Kibbie Jensen.
Nora Gillum, a seventh grader at Dripping Springs Middle School, repeated as state champion in the Junior Division Individual Website category with “Beyond the Blast: The Texas City Disaster Sparks a Clash of Rights and Responsibilities”. Nora also won the C.M. Caldwell Memorial Award which goes to the best project focusing on a Texas history subject. Her faculty sponsor is Kristen Miller.
Over 60,000 Texas students competed in the contest this year. This is the sixth-straight year a DSISD student has advanced to the national contest.
National History Day® (NHD) is a non-profit education organization that offers year-long academic programs that engage more than 500,000 middle- and high-school students around the world annually in conducting original research on historical topics of interest. The 2025 theme was “Rights and Responsibilities in History”.
The National History Day competition will be held June 8-12 at the University of Maryland in College Park.