By Pareesha Narang
Everyone learns about the history of the world and our country in school. But how much do we ever learn about the community in which the school is located?
At a town hall meeting last month West Windsor Mayor Shing-Fu Hsueh recognized two Girl Scouts who created a historical fiction book surrounding the history of West Windsor — a book that could possibly end up in the school district’s third grade curriculum.##M:[more]##
Katie McKiernan, 17, and Sara Hoge, 17, Girl Scouts and seniors at High School North, co-authored the book titled “A Timely Trip Through West Windsor: Randy’s Unforgettable Adventure.”
A historical fiction children’s book written to showcase the town’s past, the book stars a boy named Randy, who is initially apathetic to his history assignment, but then in an exciting variety of adventures through the history of West Windsor becomes inspired.
And at 17, the girls can already say they are on their way to becoming published authors — which they can add to their long lists of other high school activities. McKiernan, who moved to West Windsor when she was in first grade, is originally from Cold Spring, NY. Her father is a commodities trader for Prudential-Bache and her mother is a community volunteer. McKiernan, who is on the National Honors Society, is involved in the Red Cross Club at High School North and is on the school’s varsity golf team. She says she loves to write, but is still undecided about what she wants to study in college.
Hoge, who has lived in West Windsor her whole life, is on the school’s tennis team, is on the stage crew for the school musical and drama, is a year book section editor, and plays first doubles on North’s girls tennis team. Her father, who is the managing director of the foreign exchange floor at the Bank of New York Mellon, and her mother is also heavily involved in the community, working with the PTSA and Girl Scouts.
Hoge has two siblings — a brother who is a sophomore at North and a sister who is in fifth grade at Millstone River School. Hoge hopes to pursue a career as an oral surgeon or dentist, and has applied for early decision to Brown.
Hsueh — who had been pushing for the idea since 2001 when he first came into office — helped the girls get the district’s approval for the use of this book in the schools. “I want to be able to educate those in the WW-P district to have some basic understanding of the community, the history,” Hsueh said.
Hsueh said he helped the girls get started, first by helping them set up an outline and referring them to different sources in the area. “We have a lot of smart kids in this community — I’m very happy with their accomplishments,” Hsueh said.
McKiernan said they began their research in 2006, their freshman year. They wrote the book from June to November, 2007, went through several processes of editing including help from a teacher, and created a CD with the contents of the book in April of this year. The girls earned a Girl Scout Gold Award for their work.
Just over 90 pages long, the book includes interviews from older residents in the community, almanacs, and encyclopedias. Beginning with the Lenni Lenape Indians, the first inhabitants of this area, the girls included details about important pieces of American history and included West Windsor in the mix – the Battle of Princeton, information about West Windsor residents who fought in the Civil War, the history of the rail lines, including those in West Windsor, the War of the Worlds, and RCA and Sarnoff are all included in the book.
“We tried to cover everything notable that’s happened since the Lenni Lenapes,” said McKiernan, who added that the girls also included information about prominent High School North and South graduates, like Bryan Singer, a film director and producer who worked on the X-Men films and the television show “House.”
McKiernan expressed difficulty in finding resources about the town, but said that they learned a lot once they found several old newspapers and books. “Once we started writing, it became interesting,” McKiernan said.
While there is a previous book written on the history of West Windsor — “West Windsor, Then and Now: Commemorating the Bicentennial of West Windsor Township” written by Henry Innes MacAdam — which the girls used as a source, McKiernan said the book is written for an older audience, and younger children in elementary school might have trouble getting through it. They wanted to make a book that they would be able to easily read, she added.
Hoge said that she sketched and used Adobe Illustrator in order to produce all of the images in the book. “At times it was a lot of work, but I miss that I don’t get to work on it anymore — it was so much fun,” Hoge said.
McKiernan said the girls conducted research on independent publishers and gave the information to Hsueh, along with several disks of the book. He in turn lobbied with local nonprofits and township officials to send it to a publisher, where 800 to 1,”000 copies — enough for WW-P classrooms and the library — are being printed. The project is being financed by a community fund started by Mayor Hsueh.
Hoge said that she wants to make people aware of the historical places around West Windsor — specifically, the Schenck house, a historical landmark farmstead located off Southfield Road that contains structures dating from approximately the 1740s to the early 1900s. The township is in the process of restoring the site, which symbolizes West Windsor’s agricultural roots.
“I want people to go and check that out,” Hoge said, stressing how interesting the antiques were in the museum-type house.
Hoge and McKiernan received their Girl Scout Gold awards during a ceremony last month at Community Middle School. McKiernan and Hoge thanked Mayor Hsueh, High School North teacher Adrienne Stanley, Girl Scouts advisor Marilyn Steidel, parents Tom and Patti Hoge and David and Mary Ann McKiernan for assistance with the book.
