Phoenix-area teacher, student selected to travel to France to study Normandy invasion

PHOENIX — Just ahead of the 72nd anniversary of D-Day, a Phoenix-area high school teacher and one of her students have been chosen to travel to France to study the invasion of Normandy during World War II.

Stacey Trepanier, a language and history teacher at New Vistas Center for Education in Chandler, will be visiting the foreign country in June with 16-year-old junior Aryasp Nejat as a part of a limited-opportunity program.

The duo are one of 15 teacher-student teams who were selected to participate in “Normandy: Sacrifice for Freedom” at the Albert H. Small Student and Teacher Institute.

Participants in the program will have the chance to listen to lectures presented by World War II historians, study war memorials in Washington, D.C. and “walk in the footsteps of history” on Normandy, according to the website.

As a part of the project, Trepanier said students will research a “Silent Hero” from their home state — Arizona, in Nejat’s case — who lost their life during the invasion of Normandy and create a website to honor them.

“The student researches them, finds their history of what they were doing before the war, what their job was during the war and how they were killed,” she said.

Trepanier added, “the students are really given the opportunity to walk through the footsteps of that ‘Silent Hero’ that they’ve researched.”

The websites from all 15 of the students will serve as a digital memorial for those buried at the Normandy American Cemetery.

KTAR News’ Lauren Grifo contributed to this report. 

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