(Cjonline.com) - Last November, a group of talented Royal
Valley middle school students in Mayetta, Kansas, Colin Caviness, Colin Everts
and Luke Boyden began work on a documentary about Emma Darling Cushman — an
American nurse who rescued thousands of Armenian children who had been orphaned
during the genocide. When the Ottomans were expelling westerners from their
territory after entering World War I, Cushman remained in Konya, Turkey, to
continue operating a hospital she had worked at for over a decade. After the
genocide began, she turned the hospital into an orphanage, found safe homes for
endangered children and tried to bring shattered families back together.
As Boyden explained, this was extremely dangerous at a
time when Ottoman forces were actively searching for Armenians: “Emma Darling
Cushman is probably the bravest, kindest and most stubborn person we have ever
researched. She stood up against an entire empire.”
Beyond the research that Caviness, Everts and Boyden
conducted, they interviewed experts on the Armenian Genocide (such as Richard
Hovannisian, founder of the Armenian Studies program at UCLA and adviser to the
USC Shoah Foundation on Armenian Genocide testimony). They also spoke with Sara
Cohan, an outreach and education consultant for the Armenia Education Program
at USC. Caviness and Everts said the project taught them how inspiring and
fascinating the study of history can be.
After they finished their video, Caviness, Everts and
Boyden were rewarded for their effort to tell Cushman’s story — they received
first place in the 2016 Discovery Awards held by the Lowell Milken Center for
Unsung Heroes in Fort Scott. Beyond a $7,500 prize, the students’ documentary
earned them the privilege of providing the inscription for Cushman’s headstone
at the American Cemetery in Cairo. They chose “Emma Darling Cushman: A Light in
the Darkness.”
Although the horror of the Armenian Genocide will stay
with us, so will the work of a fearless American nurse who refused to abandon
the people who needed her most.
Royal Valley Middle School students Luke Boyden, Colin
Everts and Colin Caviness
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