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Hill students present local history book and award‑winning dam model at State Board meeting
Summary
Students from Hill (SAU 103) described creating The Jenny Story, staging a play and building a 4x3‑foot scale model of the Franklin Falls Dam that won recognition at a national dam‑safety conference in Denver; the project involved the Hill Historical Society, a grant from the Department of Education and corporate shipping support.
Students and school leaders from SAU 103 presented two multi‑year projects to the State Board of Education, describing both a locally researched historical book and a nationally recognized engineering model.
Brian Conley, principal and superintendent for SAU 103, introduced the projects and said the Jenny B. Blake book and related student play incorporated research from the Hill Historical Society and took several years to complete. Student presenters credited the historical society, a retired art teacher who helped with illustrations and school partnerships that supported a 2023 book release.
Student presenters said their dam model — a 4‑by‑3‑foot scale representing a 6‑mile river corridor (one foot on the model approximated one mile) — was built with Styrofoam topography, plaster paper and painted contours. They described calling the state Department of Environmental Services for a special topographic map and working with a local employer, Freudenberg, to crate and ship the model to Denver for a national dam‑safety model competition.
"Out of the 40 years they've been doing this, ours was the best model that they've seen," one student said of the conference recognition, and Conley noted students received medals and industry attention at the event.
The board applauded the student work, asked a few technical questions about logistics and sales, and thanked the school for sharing a community‑based education project that combined history, art and applied STEM learning.
What happens next: Board members encouraged school representatives to continue school‑to‑community partnerships and noted the historical society and grant funding helped make the projects possible.
