Twelve years ago, Elaine Forman, the children’s librarian at our public library decided to form a chapter of Tarheel Junior Historians for local homeschoolers. I never dreamed it would change our lives.

Our club about to perform in a historical dance competition at the State Fair

Tarheel Junior Historians is an organization by the North Carolina Museum of History to encourage the study of North Carolina history. Every state had a similar group in the 50’s, 9but as patriotism has waned, many of the state history clubs have died out. Tarheel Junior Historians sponsor clubs in the schools (and out!), publish a magazine free to members, and hold an annual convention with competitions on history projects.

It’s that last part that drew our boys’ attention. Competitions. Some with cash prizes! AND all winners would be on display in the Museum of History for a year. Okay, you got their attention…

Our oldest, then nine, wrote a script for a play based on a letter from a North Carolina lady to her husband during the Civil War. It was found by a soldier on the other side on the battlefield and taken home as an momento. Miss Elaine, our advisor, had found out about the letter in the archives of another state and had told our children about it.

Well, it won. When our boys saw their own movie screened in the Tarheel Junior Historian Gallery at the Museum of History, they instantly became independent Christian filmmakers. Since then they’ve won awards for more than ten movies at the Junior Historians convention and they’ve had something like five semi-finalists (movies and treatments) at the San Antonio Independent Christian Film Festival. When our oldest was interviewing for scholarships, every single committee asked him questions about his filmmaking with great interest. 

Our guys filming a the site of the former Tyson Jones Buggy Company for Tarheel Junior Historians

Most importantly, the boys’ fascination with filmmaking has turned into a love of history and God’s design in it, a commitment to writing as a way of influencing hearts, and a passion for examining media in the light of God’s Word. All from a history competition. God is good!

The Tarheel Junior Historians Gallery desperately needs renovation. They are competing in the Pepsi Refresh challenge to win $50,000 to do just that! Please vote for the Pepsi Refresh Project titled ” Create a hands-on museum gallery inspiring kids to explore History.”  
Vote today and every day until May 31, in any or all of the following ways

1) on the site www.refresheverything.com/juniorhistorians
2) via the Pepsi Refresh Project Facebook voting application
3) by texting 106354 to Pepsi (73774) from your mobile phone(standard text messaging rates apply)
4) with the Pepsi Refresh Project iPhone app or android app

Add even more with Power Votes. Look for a 10- character alphanumeric code on specially marked Pepsi, Diet Pepsi, and Pepsi Max products in participating locations. Enter you code on the Power Vote Page at www.refresheverything.com to find out how much your code is worth. (Each voter can enter up to 10 codes per day, in addition to regular votes.) If you don’t want to register to do Power Voting you can e-mail our advisor, Elaine Forman, at huhlibrary@yahoo.com with the bottle cap codes and I’ll do the power voting for you. I need those as early as possible.  You can call Elaine if you have any questions 919-934-8146 ext 235.