The Woodrow Wilson Presidential Library and Museum today announced that ten 7th grade trunk contest winners from Linda Petzke’s class at Stewart Middle School in Augusta County will visit the Presidential Library on Thursday, March 25, at 11:30 a.m. to explore trunks of President Wilson-related documents and artifacts.   The contest was inspired by the trunks of letters and other documents concerning the President that his personal physician and friend, Rear Admiral Cary T. Grayson, saved and that his family donated to the Presidential Library.  Ms. Petzke asked each of her students to create his or her own trunk containing copies of a variety of historical documents, including maps, telegrams, newspaper articles, photographs, posters, and letters.  The ten winners of the contest are rewarded with the opportunity to visit the Presidential Library and see Admiral Grayson’s trunks themselves.  The students will also visit the recently-opened World War I trench exhibit.  

Ms. Petzke also serves as an interpreter at the Presidential Library on weekends and has designed lesson plans for the Presidential Library.  Through her part-time work, she became aware of Dr. Grayson’s trunks and devised the contest as a way to make history fun for her social studies students.  Ms. Petzke and the students will donate some of the winning trunks to the Presidential Library to inspire other student trunk contests.  Attached is the trunk assignment.  

The trunk contest is one of many WWPL’s educational outreach activities.  The Presidential Library regularly hosts area students for interactive programs that meet Virginia Standards of Learning requirements.  In the “Journey Into History” program and the “Professor, President, Peacemaker” program, students tour President Wilson's birthplace and participate in group activities in the Woodrow Wilson Museum.  The WWPL also hosts two sessions of a summer “Journey Into History” camp, a three-day interactive history camp for seven- to ten-year-olds with a different historical theme each summer.  For more information about the trunk contest, contact Linda Petzke at (540) 245-5046. 

For more information about any of the Presidential Library’s children’s programs, contact Ellen Abernethy, Museum Educator, at eabernethy@woodrowwilson.org, or at (540) 885-0897, ext. 110, or visit the website at www.woodrowwilson.org.