Callen’s Reflections on the Humanities Faire, 2025-26

Callen is a Freshman and played Meriweather Clark, an American explorer, soldier, politician, and public administrator, best known for his role as the leader of the Lewis and Clark Expedition, also known as the Corps of Discovery, with William Clark.

Beginning in early September I heard everyone talking about the Humanities Faire and how much preparation was needed for success. I was very confused about everything they were talking about: the essays, the costumes and all of the acting. I wasn't sure if it was a big presentation or a play. We started gathering in the Communications Center (CC) more often, and when the teachers talked about it more things started to clear up for me. But at the time I still thought we would be doing it at the Deerfield Fair. Soon after I found out it would be down the road from the school at the Jesse Remington Farm, and we would build sets and put a lot of effort into this Humanities Faire. 

The most important part was joining a group. I thought it would be good for me to pick one I was interested in. I walked around and visited all of the groups and I ended up deciding on Ben and Emma's group, Westward Expansion, because I liked the ideas they proposed and the subject matter. Unfortunately, the research that I had already done before I got into the group wasn't helpful because I researched Thomas Edison’s inventions which was covered by a different group. The next few days we worked on big poster boards, filling them up with ideas and concepts. One of the ideas was to do a bar scene and present a conversation, which didn't sound great to me. I am ok with reading to an audience but not with delivering memorized lines. That was definitely something new that I improved in. 

When we first went to the Jesse Remington farm and mapped out where we would build all of the sets that we would be presenting on, I began to understand the whole idea of the Faire much better. The layout made more sense to me where people would walk around to see each of the four student groups’ sets to watch us present all that we have studied to them. Then came all of the research and all of the hard work. We each had to write an essay about the figure in history that we portray. I chose to be Meriwether Lewis and my partner for the presentations was my friend Josh who portrayed William Clark. After we finished our essays, we used the information to build scripts for the presentations. We kept notes in leather notebooks to help us with our lines when we presented about the exploration, which helped a lot. At the time I still didn't have my costume for it and asked my mom for help. She found a great costume that ended up getting chosen for one of the best costumes there.  I learned a lot in my first Humanities Faire!