1. This contest is open to any student in a Texas public or private high school who is in grade 9-12 during the Fall 2007 semester. Home school students may also be eligible but must contact us by email no later than Monday, October 1, 2007 for special instructions.
2. Each contest entry will consist of a presentation which runs as a slide show in Microsoft PowerPoint 2003 or an earlier version. The target audience is Texas high school students; i.e. the peers of the participants. The history of the county in which the student’s high school is located must be used. The topic must cover history that occurred at least 50 years ago or earlier (prior to 1956). The topic of the presentation must be in one of the following categories:
- a local person or group of people of historical interest
- a local building or site of historical interest
- an event which was significant in the county’s history.
Some sample ideas for project topics are:
- the county courthouse
- a battlefield and the battle which happened there
- a person from the county who made national news
- the earliest settlers of the county
- a local mystery or ghost story and the people/places associated with it
- an architect and the buildings she/he designed
- an artist, group of artists or art collection
3. Students may submit individual or group projects but each student may participate in only one project. A group may consist of up to three students. Projects may not be done with any professional help except guidance from the current history or computer teacher of the participant(s). Each project must include the name of the history or computer teacher in the students’ high school who will certify that the project is solely the work of the student(s) submitting that project to the contest.
4. Participants are required to indicate their intention to participate in the contest by submitting the official entry form. The form may be accessed online from the contest home page at
http://www.txfgmcontest.org///. Each individual student or group of students will submit one entry form for the project to be entered in the contest. Only completely filled out entry forms will be accepted. The entry form must be sent electronically by 12:00 midnight CDT on Friday, October 26, 2007. No late entrants will be permitted to submit projects to the contest.
5. All participants are responsible for the following:
- Acquiring permission to use images and audio from the copyright owners
if needed
- All project expenses
- For the winners, transportation to Austin for the awards presentation
if they choose to attend.
6. Electronic submissions must be sent from the submission form accessible online at
http://www.txfgm.org//. All projects submitted online must be sent by 12:00 midnight CST on Friday, November 30, 2007. Each submitted project will be automatically date and time stamped. Alternatively, projects may be submitted on a standard 48x max CD mailed to FGM, P.O. Box 2447, Austin, Texas 78768. Projects which are mailed must be postmarked by November 30, 2007. Participants will receive confirmation by email that their projects were received, so be sure your email address is correct in your contest entry record. No late entries will be accepted.
7. All projects must be created in and run as a slide show in Microsoft PowerPoint 2003 or an earlier version. The presentation must not exceed 17 slides and cannot run longer than 4 minutes. The only file type which will be allowed is .PPT, so all audio and image files must be imbedded in the PowerPoint file. The file size limit for all projects is 3.0 megabytes. The server will NOT accept larger files for electronic submission. Projects submitted by mail on a CD also must not exceed 3.0 megabytes. Larger files may be disqualified from the contest. See the Submission Page for additional technical specifications and for help on limiting file size to meet the requirements.
8. All projects must include as the first slide a title page listing the names of the participant(s), the name of their high school, the name of the high school teacher who certifies the project as the exclusive work of the participants, and the city and county in which the school is located. The next to the last slide of each presentation must include credits for the source of any image, sound or text quotation used from an outside source. The final slide of each presentation must list references used in researching the topic, including publications, web sites and local history collections.
9. All projects become the property of Friends of the Governor’s Mansion and may be made available to the public on the organization’s web site.
10. Winners will be selected in the following categories:
- Best overall project by an individual student
- Best overall project by a group of students
- Best use of audio
- Best use of images
- Best use of text
Winners in the two overall project categories will not be eligible for the best use of audio, images and text categories. Each winning student will receive a certificate. The high school of each winner will receive an award of $500 in honor of the winning student(s) and teacher who certified the winning project.
We suggest that part of the cash award be used to pay for travel to Austin for the winning students and their teacher to attend the awards presentation. Any remaining money from the award may be used for a school project suggested by this teacher.
11. Friends of the Governor’s Mansion will have sole responsibility for appointing the panel of judges for the contest. All decisions of the panel are final.
12. Student winners will be notified by email; their high school principals will also be notified. Winners will be invited to Austin for an awards presentation on a date to be announced.
Thank you for your interest in the Texas Governor’s Mansion. We hope that this contest will be an exciting and educational experience for Texas students. Please send your questions about the project to
txfgm@hotmail.com. 
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