Pictured (from left) is: Aaliyah Avellaneda, Maxime Risner, and Dorali Hernandez.
By: Dr. Andrew Yox, NTCC Honors Director
Last Saturday, 6 February, the Walter Prescott Webb Society, the Collegiate Auxiliary of the Texas State Historical Association, held its 47th annual presentation of the Caldwell Memorial Awards. These cash gifts are given to college and university students across the state yearly for the best essays in Texas History. In 1974, University of Texas Professor, Joe Frantz, appealed to Texas oilman, Clifton Caldwell, for funding, and the results have not only enlivened the discipline of Texas history but has benefitted the careers of many young Texans.
The 2021 spring meeting was virtual for the first time. The Texas State Historical Association Education Director, Lisa Berg presided, and Dr. Heather Green Wooten, the new Executive Director of the TSHA was introduced. Students and professors from around the state, including nine students from NTCC joined the session. There would be eight winners: four juniors and seniors, and four freshmen and sophomores.
Though in 2019, NTCC swept all four places of the lower division, in 2021, the scholars of Honors Northeast placed first, third, and fourth. It was the second-best showing in the college’s history.
In first place for the state was Presidential Scholar, Aaliyah Avellaneda, of Mount Pleasant. Until this point only three scholars in NTCC history have ranked first in the state, and two were from one, Pittsburg family, Noah and Olivia Griffin (Carlos Mendez was the third, first-place winner). Avellaneda’s prize of $400 came for an essay on former Texas Lieutenant Governor, Bill Ratliff, who graciously gave her an interview, right at NTCC, last 1 October. She argued that the case of Ratliff, the “Texas Ticket-Splitter,” offers a corrective to the polarization of politics today.” Ratliff throughout his political career maintained both a mysterious ideology, and a constituency-based agenda.
Maxime Risner of Winnsboro won $150 and third place for her essay on the “Disenchantment of a Rural Veterinarian.” She argued that despite scientific advances, Texas as the premier “big-animal state” is finding it more and more difficult to maintain the health of its cattle and horse population. Finally Dorali Hernandez of Mount Pleasant came in fourth and won $75 for her history of Texas nursing in the last twenty years of the twentieth-century. She argued that a core group of Texas nurses arose during a time of staggering challenges, and successfully maintained patient-centered, holistic care.
All three NTCC scholars benefitted from the resources and help of the larger community. In addition to having Ratliff’s biography, and an interview, Avellaneda had access to the Bo Pilgrim film research being pursued by other scholars. This research itself received help from college patrons, and part of Avellaneda’s thesis involved the anomalous way the Republican State Senator opposed his district’s key Republican patron—Bo Pilgrim. Risner’s work was based on a remarkably candid and revealing interview granted her by Dr. Kathy Carter of NTCC’s biology department. Dorali Hernandez, in turn, based her work on modern nursing on three extensive local interviews, two with Dr. Karen Koerber-Timmons, Director of Nursing Programs at NTCC, and one with former NTCC Nursing Director, Cynthia Amerson, now teaching at Collin College.
Honors Director, Dr. Andrew Yox notes: “Avellaneda, Risner, and Hernandez represented the front wave of the most remarkable research effort I have ever seen come out of a single class. All three, as well others in the class, worked unflaggingly every week to extend their domain of primary and secondary sources, and address questions that were emerging at every stage in the research. I believe we will see many more good things come from this group.”
The essays of the three scholars as well as those of their NTCC peers in Texas history will soon be considered as well for Touchstone, the journal of the Webb Society.
Anyone interested in the work of these scholars can contact Dr. Yox at ayox@ntcc.edu. Currently Honors Northeast is accepting applications for the 2021-2021 academic year. Those interested can also email Yox. The applications are due by 1 March.
