NTCC Honors students advance film research in Austin

Vanessajane Bayna’s state Caldwell-Award winning essay on toxification and big oil in Texas may not only result in a publication. The NTCC Presidential Scholar now awaiting her sophomore year may see her work one day as a cinematic premiere. This past May, four upcoming scholars of Honors Northeast--Rebeca Martinez, Ariana Tagg, Isabel Tresidder, and Avery Woods, and as well as Title V Director Athena Hayes, and Honors Director, Dr. Andrew Yox, journeyed to Austin for research on modern Texas political leaders and their relation to the petroleum industry. The group pursued research both at the Lyndon Baines Johnson Presidential Library, and the Dolph Briscoe Center for American History, both attached to the University of Texas campus.

If completed, the film on big oil and Texas leaders will be the thirteenth in a series of feature-length cinematic productions made from scratch by the members of Honors Northeast, and the NTCC chapter of the Walter P. Webb Society. The Webb Society, representing students bound for the Texas History honors seminar and other supporters in the community, in turn, is tied to State Webb Society which is the collegiate auxiliary of the Texas State Historical Association.

The group left NTCC at 4:30 a.m. on a Wednesday, 22 May, to gain three days of research at the two leading archives of Texas history. Led by Athena Hayes, the group also managed to tour through the Bob Bullock Museum of Texas History, and the Texas Capitol before leaving Austin for the late-night ride back to NTCC.

Rebeca Martinez, Ariana Tagg, and Avery Woods researched special topics at the Dolph Briscoe Center, and Isabel Tresidder worked at the LBJ Library. To work in a federal depository, before leaving, Tresidder had to watch an orientation, pass a test, and take part in Zoom interview with an archival librarian.

On the drive home from the trip, each student gave an oral rendition of what they had found in their research. After returning to NTCC, the group has compiled a forty-five page, 12,000-word document that is being used in conjunction with Bayna’s essay as the textual foundation for the script of the upcoming film.