Kaitie Edmiston, Lauren Darlington & Colleen Gray

Kids' drama features Lewis&Clark women

Five seventh grader girls at LaSalle Springs Middle School decided to try a new angle for their Lewis&Clark history project. They researched, wrote and performed an original drama on the role of women in the 1804-06 exploration.

Judges at the recent regional History Day competition liked their effort. The girls won first place in the Junior Group Performance category. They've advanced to the State History Day contest later this spring.

Thirteen-year-old Lauren Darlington said she was surprised to find such positive roles that women played in the success of the Lewis&Clark expedition.

Kaitie Edmiston and Kristin Walker

Last year, Lauren said she prepared a history project on the early years of the U.S. women's rights movement. She said she discovered pretty bad treatment of women.

She said, after her Lewis&Clark research, "I was surprised at how well women were treated. And that trip was even before the time of the main women's rights movement."

The other members of the winning team were seven grade classmates Kristin Walker, 13; Kaitie Edmiston, 12; Colleen Gray, 12, and Kelsey Haynes, 13.

Kristin said the subject of their drama was a natural. She said, "We all like to do acting. And, since we're all girls, we thought we should do something about women."

The three women selected were two Indians, Sacagawea and Wetxuuiis, and Mrs. Lucy Marks, the mother of Meriwether Lewis.

Kristin Walker and Kaitie Edmiston were given the job of researching the Lewis&Clark expedition. They had a lot of the background after doing a history display exhibit for last year's History Day competition.

Kaitie said, "At first, we were just going to do Sacajawea. But, there were so many of us on the team, we needed more characters."

Kristin Walker, Kelsey Haynes & Lauren Darlington

Colleen Gray did the research on Mrs. Marks, whose full name was Lucy Meriwether Lewis Marks. Her first husband, who died of pneumonia, was the father of Meriwether Lewis.

Colleen said Mrs. Marks had a reputation of being good at healing friends and neighbors who were sick. "I don't think she worked in a hospital but she helped people get well," Colleen said. The Markses lived in Virginia.

She added, "She taught Meriwether Lewis about healing. That kept people from dying during the Discovery Expedition." There was only one death--from a ruptured appendix--during the whole two-year journey.

Kelsey Haynes was assigned the research on Sacagawea, the only woman in the official expedition party. Kelsey also brought the team a special resource. Her father, Michael Haynes, has been commissioned to do paintings of the Lewis&Clark reenactment journey.

Kelsey said the girls got "lots of research help from my Dad." But, she said they also used some historical material directly from the daily journals kept by Lewis and Clark.

Lauren Darlington & Kelsey Haynes

Lauren Darlington got much of her information on Wetxuuiis in a phone call to a current member of the Nezperce Indian tribe, who is a college professor.

Lauren described Wetxuuiis an "an old woman on her deathbed" at the time the Lewis&Clark group went through. She said Wetxuuiis used her reputation to provide messages to the Blackfoot Indians that kept the explorers out of trouble.

After all the research was done, the girls still needed to write a script, create costumes, rehearse the drama and built props.

Each girl wrote a segment of the script. The team then held about two weeks of meetings to put the whole script together. Kaitie Edmiston said, "Then, since I like to write poetry, I went through it to edit it at the end."

One thing they planned to use--but didn't--was a music background during the skit.

Lauren said, "Everything was there for the music but we didn't turn it on." She said the girls couldn't get the music to mesh with the rest of the drama script.

However, they are planning to add music to their state competition performance. Regional winners get to make improvements before the state competition.

Kelsey Haynes said, "We're going to redo the hut and make it into a teepee." The girls' background featured a frontier hut, forest land and Mrs. Marks' home.

Kelsey said, "We're going to make a new Indian costume and maybe redo Wetxuuiis' costume. We're also going to wear wigs next time."