Bringing history to life: Bend Gate third graders portray American icons for wax museum

Unknowing visitors to Bend Gate Elementary Thursday night might have thought they stepped into a time warp.

American icons ranging from Betsy Ross to Walt Disney to Neil Armstrong assembled in the cafeteria as part of a wax museum put on by the school's third-graders.

The wax museum was the culmination of a six-week project in which students were tasked with reading up on their chosen icons, creating outlines and a poster display and learning facts they could recite when prompted. It gave kids the chance to be creative while developing their research and critical-thinking skills, said third-grade teacher Lori Farmer, who organized the project.

"Our standards that we teach with nowadays are a lot more rigorous and big projects such as these are a good way for me to kind of incorporate a variety of standards in one event," Farmer said.

Each of the roughly 85 participating students got to choose an icon based on their own interests.

The adventure-loving Sara Vaughn, 8, felt a kinship with Amelia Earhart, so she donned a leather jacket, brown cap and goggles to play the famed aviator.

"People said that she couldn't do it because she was a girl," Vaughn said. "She kind of stood up for what she believed in. Like, since she's a girl, she can still do things that boys can do."

Vaughn said she was excited about portraying Earhart, but scared people were going to push her button repeatedly. Each time a student's button was pushed, they had to recite one fact about their icon.

The students had to come up with 10 facts, including information on why the icon was famous, how they died and what they did during their lifetime to imprint their legacy.

"He was kind to others and freed the slaves," said Ashton Todd, 9, about President Abraham Lincoln.

Todd said he chose Lincoln because he liked that he gave speeches and he had also once visited Gettysburg, where president made his famous address. Todd was sans beard and his-paper stuffed stovepipe hat for rehearsal Thursday afternoon, but had on an overcoat reminiscent of the president's black attire.

Costume played an important part of getting the third-graders into character.

Her blonde hair plaited in braids and wearing a blue dress and boots fit for a prairie girl, Lilly Green, 9, was ready to rattle off facts about children's author Laura Ingalls Wilder at moment's notice. Green is a fan of the "Little House" book series and television show and parlayed her interest to research Wilder's life for the project.

Dylon Moore, 9, wasn't sure whom he wanted to portray, but after a little Internet surfing came across Eddie Rickenbacker, the World War I air ace, race car driver, automotive designer and longtime head of Eastern Air Lines.

"I like to make stuff and he did a lot of interesting things and that's why I wanted to pick him," said Moore, who wore a blue dress shirt, tie and slacks to play Rickenbacker.

Farmer is already thinking about making the wax museum a tradition.

"We hope this is the first annual wax museum," she said.