CHESTERFIELD COUNTY, Va. -- A Cosby High School history teacher has her eyes on the future.
Ms. Nicole Winter’s research is now published on an award-winning website for teachers. It’s a lesson plan that can help teachers and students.
Ms. Winter participated in the 2017 Understanding Sacrifice program. It’s a partnership between National History Day®, the American Battle Monuments Commission (ABMC), National Cemetery Administration (NCA), and the Roy Rosenzweig Center for History and New Media.
She spent the first half of the year researching the life of Pfc. Evans Overby.
"I was interested in the Bataan experience and I wanted to pick a soldier that was from Virginia," she said.
The doomed Pfc. Overby was one of hundreds of American servicemen captured by the Japanese, in the Philippines, during World War II.
He survived the grueling Bataan death march, only to die months later of malnutrition.
"He was in an unmarked grave. He was in a mass grave. It is only through DNA that they've identified him in the last year," Winter said.
Using her research, she created a lesson plan, a fallen hero profile.
She even read a prepared eulogy when Pfc. Overby's remains were returned to the United States.
Building Better Minds with Rob Cardwell airs Wednesdays on CBS 6.
