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LOGAN NEILLA love of art and the past helped the Springstead High School honor student win a scholarship worth more than $100,000.
SPRING HILL - Growing up in the northeastern Romanian city of Suceava, Carla Baricz was surrounded by history.
When she was little, her family often would visit the 14th century cathedrals and castles that dot the region. And whenever the family would take a trip to an art or history museum, Carla would be the first one ready to leave the house.
Even after she emigrated from her homeland to a bustling, modern life in America, Carla's passion for the past remained strong. She checked out history books from the library and took them home to read. She delved into classical art and literature, and even took to writing poetry.
All of which helped pave the way for the Springstead High School honor student's recent top honors at the National History Day contest in Maryland.
Her essay, "Vincent Van Gogh and the Exploration of Emotion Through Art: An Encounter with the Human Struggle," earned the 16-year-old a full four-year scholarship worth more than $100,000 to Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland.
"I was overwhelmed when they told me I had won it," said the soft-spoken teen, who will enter Springstead High as a senior in August. "It's given me tremendous pride to have represented my school and my teachers."
Carla is the first Hernando County student to bring home a major prize from the annual competition, which drew about 700 contestants from around the country.
Considering that the teen wasn't certain she was even going to enter the contest this year, it makes her success even sweeter.
"I was so busy at school, I really didn't know if I would have time for a project," she said.
Her initial essay was to be about Albert Einstein and the development of his theory of relativity, but she decided to abandon the project because it didn't hold her interest.
But Van Gogh's art, was more compelling. She had often gazed at the Dutch post-impressionist's famous portraits and wondered what kind of thinking went into them. She was particularly intrigued by his tortured emotions that seem to spill from each painting.
Carla's research into her 2,495-word treatise was extensive.
She spent hours in libraries and on the Internet. She contacted art professors at the University of South Florida, the University of Florida, as well as an art historian at Bard College in New York, who told her what she was looking for probably wouldn't be found in a history book.
"To Van Gogh, art was language," Carla said. "I thought my essay should concentrate on how his radical ideas changed the way people viewed and understood art."
Perhaps toughest of all of Carla's tasks was actually composing her essay. According to Fox Chapel Middle School's Dana Cottrell, who has organized Hernando's National History preliminary competition for the past 10 years, judges tend to be rather exact in their expectations. The writer must be concise and to the point, and, of course, impeccably factual.
"Her research and writing were of an extremely high level," Cottrell said. "I was very hopeful."
Cottrell and Springstead history teacher Suzanne Bates-Miranda accompanied Carla and seven other high school finalists to the national competition at the University of Maryland.
Carla watched nervously as judges posted their rankings, which placed her essay seventh overall.
According to Cottrell the grand prize isn't always awarded to the top entry. Carla's course work, grade-point average and college entrance criteria helped to determine her status in the end.
"If anybody deserved it, she did," said Bates-Miranda, Carla's history teacher at Powell Middle School. "I think what she did will carry over and get more kids to want to enter the history fair next year."
As for Carla, she's busy planning her project for fall. Though the subject is still something of a secret, she has been spending the summer doing research.
"It's really been a tremendous experience for me," Carla said. "Not just winning, but being around kids who really love learning. It inspires you."
- Logan Neill can be reached at 352848-1435 or lneill@sptimes.com