OZARK, Arkansas — A student and teacher at Ozark High School were selected for the 2025 class of the Albert H. Small Normandy Institute at George Washington University. The program takes high school students to Washington D.C. and France to learn about the D-Day Campaign of 1944.
Junior Ava McCartney and social studies teacher Jessica Culver were one of only fifteen student-teacher teams selected for this program.
McCartney spent the spring taking online classes about Normandy, as well as researching one soldier who died on D-Day. This soldier was Harold Eugene Sellers — better known as "Gene."
“This is not just a trip to [Ava]," Culver said. "It is learning and telling someone’s story."
Gene was born in Jonesboro, Arkansas in 1922. He went on to attend the University of Arkansas on an athletic scholarship, where he was a star player in basketball and football.
As a pathfinder, he was killed by a German Sniper at the age 22 on June 6, 1944. 81 years later, his story lives on.
McCartney will honor Gene with a speech at his gravesite in the Normandy American Cemetery, as well as the Airborne Spirit Monument in Saint-Mere-Eglise, recognizing his role as a pathfinder.
McCartney says she is honored to deliver this speech.
“His remembrance is what I'm looking forward to the most," she said. "Because he's right there. It's an indescribable feeling how excited I am to give that speech."
They are departing for our nation's capital next week — followed by Bayeux, Normandy and Paris — and plan to return home on June 30.