Luling, LA – Three teams from our Press Play crew placed at the National History Day – New Orleans Regional competition on Saturday and have advanced to compete at the state-level next month.

The group consisting of Sage Blackledge, Robert “Korbin” Bryan, Phillip Cheramie, Tyric Johnson and Jyia Joseph earned a first place finish in the Senior Group Documentary category for their documentary “The Confederate Monuments of New Orleans“.

“At first I was nervous because the group that finished fourth place also did their’s on confederate monuments, so my heart kind of sunk,” Johnson says. “But I was relieved when I found out that we won.”

The group consisting of Ashley Deshotel, Jordan Kay-Gros and Mikayla Noto finished in second place in the same category for their documentary titled “LGBTQ+ Rights Throughout History” Despite finishing in second place, Deshotel was glad that both groups will be moving on.

“We’re really excited that all of our groups qualified to move onto state,” she explains. “It wouldn’t have been as fun if only one of us had moved on.”

One student, Bracey Darensbourg placed second in the Senior Individual Documentary category for her documentary “W.I.N.” Women in NASA“.

“It felt really good to place,” she said. “Like all of my hard work paid off.”

All three groups now advance to the state level of the competition on Saturday, April 14th. Any groups who finish first or second at the state level will advance to national level of the National History Day competition, which takes place in Washington, D.C. in June.