The Hull Memorial Prize is open to all ages, with a Junior Prize for those 16 and under. For this, it’s third year, the Junior Prize is awarded to young siblings from Baltimore City, Josephine and August. They were informed of the contest by their mother who learned about it from a toastmaster’s club of which she is a member. Her children’s interest was piqued by a ‘junior prize’ and they were quick to accept the challenge. In the words of their father, “Many times I thought they were playing little games on their computers, they were diligently working on their slide shows for their speeches!”

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Both kids attend elementary school in South Baltimore. Josephine, aged 10 and finishing fourth grade, is a member of a lacrosse club but may love playing soccer even more. She studies piano, is an avid reader, and excels at writing. She is tickled by the fact that when her paternal grandparents were both active-duty Air Force stationed in Fairbanks, AL, in the final years of the Vietnam War, that her grandmother outranked her grandfather.

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August, 8 years old and finishing third grade, plays with the same lacrosse Club (long pole defenseman) as well as with a youth soccer League. He’s a big fan of the “Diary of a Wimpy Kid” book series, graphic novels, Yahtzee, and is reportedly a mean Pinochle player. August is very proud of his uncle who is an Osprey pilot for the Marine Corps at one of several bases in Okinawa, Japan where he visited as a 7-year-old with his family.

Jo Ann Daly Carr is a librarian and director emerita of Media, Education Resources, and Information Technology at the University of Wisconsin–Madison School of Education. She possesses two degrees from Indiana University Bloomington. After a thirty-six-year career in libraries and information technology, Jo Ann has returned to her life-long interests in historical research and writing. Her primary research focus is the roles and contributions of Northern women in the American Civil War.

 

In 2020, she published Such Anxious Hours: Wisconsin Women’s Voices from the Civil War (University of Wisconsin Press). This title provided context for the writings of eight Wisconsin women through extensive background information on the Civil War. One of the first titles Jo Ann read as a background source was Within Fort Sumter, purportedly written by a woman of the Charleston garrison in 1861. This title alerted Jo Ann to the presence of women during the crisis that began the Civil War and launched four years of study on the women of the Federal Garrison in Charleston in 1860-1861.

 

Her lecture focuses on these women of Charleston including Baltimore natives Mary Moale Foster, Nanny Moale Smith Lincoln, and their daughters, Annie Foster and Nannie Smith.

Matt Gresick, originally from Beaver Falls, Pennsylvania, graduated from Indiana University of Pennsylvania in 2002 with a degree in Secondary Education with an emphasis in History. Out of college he was recruited to teach 6th grade Ancient History in Wicomico County, MD, where he also coached intramural flag football, soccer, and basketball. Matt next taught American Government, coached the mock trial team and supervised the chess club at James M. Bennett High School in Salisbury, MD. During this time he received the mentor teacher of the year award from Salisbury University.

 

Matt currently lives in central Maryland with his wife Grace and works at Reservoir High School in Howard County. There he has taught US History, American Government, World History, AP Human Geography, Ancient History, Sociology, Psychology, and World Religions, as well as having coached varsity football and basketball. Matt earned his Master’s degree in Curriculum and Instruction from McDaniel College. He has also served as the Professional Development School Liaison for Towson University supporting the next generation of educators. In 2014, he helped a fellow educator Eric Ebersole become a Maryland state delegate. Since then he has chaired the government relations committee for the Howard County Education Association from 2015 to 2016 and ran, himself, for the Baltimore County Board of Education in 2018.

 

Matt was honored to receive the Gilder-Lehrman Maryland History Teacher of the Year Award in 2020. He chaired the Catonsville Middle School PTSA Equity Committee in 2021 and the following year he became a National Education Association Director as well as a board member for the Maryland State Education Association.