The state competition, which was put on by the Nebraska Chamber of Commerce & Industry, had three rounds. The first two rounds included 20 multiple choice questions about various historical documents, court cases and civics concepts.

In the final round, the top five students gave short pitches about the essays they submitted on improving a problem in their community. Bernal wrote about the Tyson Plant closure after she visited Lexington in December.

“Things were really starting to be like, ‘Oh my gosh, the Tyson plant is actually closing,’” Bernal said. “Around two weeks later, during the first day back from winter break, my social studies teacher said we’re going to be writing an essay about a problem we see in our community. I thought, ‘Wow, this is something really positive I could use my voice for.’”

In her essay, Bernal said she wanted to bring awareness to the closure and host job fairs for those impacted. Other topics included student mental health, impacts of flooding and the childcare crisis.

Tara Lea, executive vice president of partnerships and programs for the Nebraska Chamber of Commerce & Industry, said more than 500 students submitted essays across Nebraska, making the state fifth in the nation for participation and first per capita.

“We had no idea what to expect when we signed up to do this,” Lea said. “We were just excited all 50 states were doing it. We were proud to be one of them, but Nebraska showed up.”

One of D.C.’s most personal statehood activism stories can now be seen by a larger audience, two years after its premiere.

WETA has added the documentary “51st State” to its District Docs collection, now streaming on WETA+. The station has also posted the documentary on its YouTube channel.

Voters in last week’s D.C. Democratic primary selected nominees for mayor and delegate who have vowed to keep up the fight for the District’s autonomy, so it’s a fitting time to revisit the film, which follows a young Washingtonian whose life has been shaped by the fight for representation.

D.C. statehood movement is personal for Jamal Holtz. It started long before he became the face of a movement or the subject of a documentary. It began at home.

“When my mom talked about having lack of access to health insurance and the impacts on me and going to school, that was all rooted in our lack of being a state,” Holtz said. “The fact that we didn’t have a vote on the matter of the Affordable Care Act was to show people that, like, people in D.C. actually experience real issues and real problems.”

“51st State” director Hannah Rosenzweig first met Holtz at a 2021 event in Brooklyn organized by 51 for 51 and New Yorkers for D.C. Statehood. The group pushes for D.C. to become a state with 51 votes in the Senate instead of the 60‑vote filibuster threshold.

Rosenzweig said one part of the movement immediately caught her attention.

“I just love the framing of young native Washingtonians,” Rosenzweig said. “Really looking at them as part of a voting rights and civil rights movement.”

She said Holtz stood out from the beginning, saying she knew “he was going places.”

“He’s a leader,” Rosenzweig said. “He’s charismatic — people listen when he talks.”

Filming began in June 2021, when Holtz was 23.

Holtz, who is now 28, said: “You had me when I had braces, to me with facial hair and no braces.”

Serving the community isn’t new to Holtz. He was a member of the Marion Barry Youth Leadership Institute, the city’s long‑running program that trains D.C. teenagers in leadership and public service.

The documentary, which premiered June 16, 2024, at the DC/DOX Film Festival, follows the push for statehood through the House’s passage of H.R. 51, the advocacy campaign in the Senate and the everyday life of a fourth‑generation Washingtonian.

“It talks about D.C. statehood through a different lens,” Holtz said. “What does lack of statehood look like in people’s day‑to‑day lives?”

Rosenzweig said she wanted viewers to see the real Washington — the neighborhoods and the families who rarely appear in national conversations about the city.

“There’s a culture of D.C. that most people don’t know about,” she said. “I love that. In fact, I wanted to move there.”

Holtz spoke to WTOP outside the Wilson Building by the Marion Barry statue, and was asked where he saw himself in 20 years.

“I’ll be standing on the grounds of the 51st state,” Holtz said. “Helping to govern our state and helping live up to the American dream and democracy that the people of D.C. want.”

When the question turned to which office sounded more fun, governor or senator, Holtz smiled and said, “The title will figure it out.”

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The Lincoln Memorial reflecting pool is set to be drained again after Donald Trump said on Monday – without providing proof – that five people were arrested for vandalism and five more are under investigation in connection to the algae blooms and peeling paint that appeared weeks after his ill-fated $14m renovation attempt.

“It’s not a lot of damage, but we’ll probably have to let the water out and refix it. They went in there with a knife,” Trump told reporters, describing what he first said was a 290- to 300ft slit in the paint but then later amended to a 350ft slit. He also said someone had put fertilizer into the water, which caused the algae to grow.

Reporters who visited the pool on Sunday could see no evidence of such damage, the Washington Post reported.

The newspaper also interviewed three-time Olympic cyclist David Hearn, who said he had been arrested by US park police on a misdemeanor charge after stopping by the refurbished pool and, out of curiosity, touching one of the pieces of peeling paint liner.

Trump has sought to turn the monument “American flag blue” in time for the for the country’s 250th birthday, which included painting the bottom of the pool a dark shade of navy officially called “Old Glory Blue”.

He awarded a no-bid contract to a company he said had previously done work on swimming pools at one of his golf clubs, and within days of the completion of the work, the water started to appear green from algae plaguing the standing water and the coating of paint applied during the renovation also started to detach.

On Monday, Trump was adamant it was not the pool company to blame for the algae blooms and peeling paint, but “vandals”. When pushed to provide evidence of his claims, he told reporters to call the Department of the Interior and the National Park Service. Neither agency responded immediately to a request for comment, nor did the US park police.

When asked how alleged vandals were able to get so close to one of Washington DC’s most historically symbolic attractions, where there is a heavy police presence, Trump responded that “we didn’t have a lot” of police then.

“Who would think that somebody would go into a pool and take a knife and start cutting it?” he asked.

It’s unclear when the pool will be drained, but a spokesperson with the DC Water Authority said the agency has issued the national parks service a temporary permit to discharge water into a sewer that flows into a local treatment facility. The permit was issued 16 June and expires 2 July, the spokesperson said.

Trump had earlier posted on social media that “there is a 10-year prison sentence for the destruction, or even the attempted destruction, of such things – Which will be fully enforced!”

Destruction of federal property ⁠can carry a maximum prison sentence of 10 years.