LPOHS students showcase interests, talents

SANDPOINT — Isabella Wright has loved sewing ever since her grandmother taught her when she was young.

After volunteering to help a friend with the fashion component of a history project, the Lake Pend Oreille High School senior discovered historical fashion and was hooked.

"I volunteered [to help with the fashion aspect of the project] and I have just loved it ever since," she said. "I love history. And I love learning what people lived like, not necessarily dates of wars and stuff like that. But how people lived, like their daily everyday, life, what they ate, what they wore, like that type of thing."

It didn't take long before that interest translated very quickly into sewing historical garments.

"It's just, like so much fun to create something that someone then would have worn," she said.

Wright's presentation on historical fashion included a custom Edwardian corset that she created, researching the pattern from 1903, finding the materials and sewing the corset based on her exact measurements.

It was just one of several dozen senior projects that filled the high school's gymnasium earlier this week, attracting classmates, family members and friends.

Being able to share her project with the community and classmates was fun, Wright said. Picking the corset to exemplify historical fashion gave her a chance to showcase how people lived during the Edwardian period since the garment was key to creating the shape for which the period is known.

"I chose it because I feel like, I don't know, it was an insanely important item to a lot of women of the time," she said. "And I feel like it's also something that is super misunderstood now. And it's something that we kind of toss off to the side and decide that it's like, you know, so uncomfortable and like so horrible for you. But knowing what I knew about history, I wanted to know what it was actually like to wear a corset that fit you and was made like they would make them."

Like Wright, a longstanding interesting in a subject led Caitlin O'Boyle to select pottery for her senior project. She teamed up with Sandpoint High School art teacher Zabrielle Dillon, the LPOHS senior learned how to turn lump of clay into a flower pot and several other items.

While she had fun on the project, she doesn't plan to pursue it as a career. Instead, O'Boyle said she plans to pursue some form of therapy.

"I would definitely do it again but more as a hobby," she said. "It was a lot more difficult than I had anticipated, which made it really fun."

She enjoyed the challenge, and said she would likely pick pottery all over again.

"I probably would have started working on my piece of pottery a bit sooner, just so that it could be fired in time," O'Boyle said. "But I'm really glad I did choose to do this. It's something that I really wanted to do while I was still in high school and I got the chance to do it, which was really nice."

With a number of his family members knowing how to weld, Brian Lord said picking that skill for his senior project gave him the opportunity to learn how to do it as well.

"It was a lot of back-breaking work and it was very difficult to do," Lord said.

While it took more patience than he thought — critical in ensuring a good weld — Lord said that wasn't what surprised him. Instead, the senior said the biggest challenges were tracking down the necessary materials and the length of time needed to get them.

"I don't think so," Lord said when asked if he was considering welding as a career. "Because it's way too much work for me and I just wanted to do it just so I know how to do it."

While his sights are set on a dental career, Lord said he's glad he learned how to weld, and plans to put the skill to use for future car repairs — similar to crafting a new bumper for his dad's truck.

"I was always fascinated on how well people do it," Lord said. "And so it just looked like a whole lot of fun and people in my family know how to weld as well. And I mainly learned how to be careful with time and be safe."

Completing a senior project is required in Idaho for students to graduate, and while following the guidelines outlined by the state and the school, each senior picks a topic that appeals to them in some way. As part of LPOHS requirements, students must give a presentation on their project.

LPOHS social studies teacher Luke Childers said he was amazed by the diversity of projects, adding it was evident how much hard work students put into their presentations.

"It gives us a chance to honor the hard work they've done and showcase what they've been up to," Childers said.

Students had eight weeks to do their projects, and put together the presentation and displays. From motorcycles to taxidermy to a wooden bench for the school's new garden, the LPOHS gym was filled with the visible results of the students' work.

"They really dive into it and get going," Childers said as he looked across the gym, pointing to the student who built the bench from a log she had.

"She wanted to create something that could be there forever," he said.

Another student used the project to learn how to do taxidermy with his grandfather, something he'd grown up seeing his family do.

"He said he's seen this process all his life but he really got into it," Childers said. "He got to spend a bunch of time with his grandfather and said that was really a special time."