5 Fighting Sullivans Project

For the 12th year at Shenandoah High School Mr. Kirkholms class paid  tribute to the 5 Sullivans Brothers from Waterloo Iowa.  The 5 brothers, George, Frank, Joseph, Madison, and Al all enlisted into the navy after Pearl Harbor was bombed by the Japanese.  They were assigned to the USS Juneau with 600 other sailors.   On November 13 1942 the USS Juneau was hit by a Japanese torpedo  sinking the Juneau and killing most of the crew including all 5 Sullivan brothers.   There were only 10 sailors who survived the blast.

In Mr. Kirkholms class besides reading about the Sullivans they watch the Hollywood movie ``The Fighting Sullivans”, watch the documentary of what happened to the Sullivan brothers in their final days.  The class also watches the discovery of the Juneau that took place in 2019.  

Then the class creates projects in honor of the Sullivans and sends to Kelly Sullivan the granddaughter of Al Sulllivan.  Al was the only Sullivan Married.  He married Katherine Mary Roof when he was 19 and had 1 son Jimmy.  Jimmy is Kelleys dad.  Kelley Sullivan, a 3rd grade teacher in Cedar Falls.  The student body, faculty,  and members of the community had the honor of hearing Kelley speak about her family last year.

The Projects this year was divided up between the 4 sections of American History and  Gabby Sparks 3rd grade class.  Here is what they did:

1st hour -  Abby Martin and Morgan Cook divided the 1st class hour into 5 groups of 2 to make brochures. Each brochure individually highlighted one brother that we chose for them. They were to include the childhood, hobbies, and life before the Navy. They then talked about their Navy career and thanked the Sullivan’s for the sacrifice of their family and talked about the Sullivan tributes.  

2nd hr - Jenna Burdorf and Kassidy Stephens

We divided the class into 5 groups and assigned them the following. The sinking of the USS Juneau, the discovery of the USS Juneau, the DD- 537, the DDG-68, and then the Christening of the ships. 

5th hr- Valeria Cardona and Kathryn Nicholas divided the class into 5 groups and assigned each group a brother. They had to research and find out information about the brother they were assigned. They had to ask Kelly 4 questions about the family and finally they had to thank the Sullivan family for their sacrifice. 

7th hr. -  Macey Finlay and Caroline Rogers

As the class project, we had the students take all that they learned to make a memory packet of the Sullivan family. In the memory packet they had to answer different questions related to the topic we gave them. They had to include pictures and information about the 5 brothers, their family, how the USS Juneau sank, and the history of it all. 

3rd grade - Cambre Schutt and Sopia Adkins  

While brainstorming how to incorporate Kellys third graders into the tribute this year, we thought it would be a really cool idea to match up our third grade students with Kellys third grade class, and create a sort of pen pal like scenario. We went over to their class and gave a presentation on The Sullivans. We directed the class in writing their letters to the other third grade class, and they were so excited to talk to some new friends their age.