The annual spring meeting of the Walter Prescott Webb Society, the collegiate auxiliary of the Texas State Historical Association (TSHA) met again in person this year, in Austin. At the end of the conference, on 29 February, Lisa Berg, the TSHA Director of Education presented the Caldwell Awards for essays achieving excellence in Texas history. Again, scholars from Honors Northeast, the honors program at Northeast Texas Community College, scored around the apex in the competition. Surprisingly, however, this year, it was not in the freshman/sophomore division where NTCC scholars excelled, but in the junior/senior, “university division”—including those scholars who had more than sixty hours of credit. Jessie Parchman from Mount Pleasant won $300 and second in the state with her essay, “Sudden Surge: From Past-Aid to Future-Aid Healthcare in the Lone Star State.” Parchman argued that the 1970s became the seminal decade of medical modernization in Texas. Maiko Estrada, also from Mount Pleasant, placed third and won $175 in this same division with his essay, “The Well-Being Activist: Dr. James Henry “Red” Duke.” Estrada argued that the Texas TV personality and celebrity physician of the 1980s, Dr. Duke, represented an ideal interface between the public and the medical establishment, a model that health officials would be wise to consider today.
Read more : Parchman, Estrada win in university division