Asked what she wants to do when she grows up, Valencia 10-year-old Margaret Allgood Wurfel had previously said she wanted to be a cat doctor.
A three-minute video she made about a three-legged cat just won the National Award of Excellence in Film Production from the National PTA Reflections Program. Now Wurfel might want to be a filmmaker, but she still wants to help cats, too, and she also said she’d be interested in being a scientist, maybe even work at NASA.
“Also, one of the things that I kind of want to do — because my mom told me about it — is, when I get older, try to rediscover Amelia Earhart’s crashed plane,” Wurfel said during a recent telephone interview.
The fourth-grade Meadows Elementary School student recently did a speech on the topic for school, saying Earhart, known for being the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean in 1932, who went missing in 1937 when she was on a flight to circumnavigate the globe, is still one of the great unsolved mysteries. Wurfel is absolutely fascinated with the subject.
She regularly participates in science fairs, said her dad, Jeff Wurfel. For the past three years, she’s also created projects for the National PTA Reflections Program, a nationwide arts recognition and achievement program for students that’s run by the National Parent Teacher Association in the United States.
Each year, the program invites students in pre-K through grade 12 to create and submit original works of art in the areas of dance choreography, film production, literature, music composition, photography and visual arts.
In the past, Wurfel has done photography and other video projects. After learning this year’s theme for projects, which was “accepting imperfection,” she knew just where to go.
“Her friend’s aunt is a veterinarian,” Wurfel’s dad said over the phone. “She had told us about this three-legged cat that she had, and because this was a project about living with imperfections — and because Maggie loves cats — we went over there, and she shot the documentary.”
The video, called “Kalavera the Tripod Cat,” follows the story of Kalavera, a three-legged rescue cat. The veterinarian had, at the time, been fostering the cat at her home, and Wurfel shot her video while the cat was in her care.
Lauren Lavysh, Meadows Elementary School Parent Teacher Student Association president and Reflections chair at the site, said that, when she read Wurfel’s pitch, she was very excited to see what she’d ultimately create.
“It turned into so much more than we expected,” Lavysh said. “And in order to get to nationals, you have to win first at every one of the other levels. I don’t know how many thousands of films that she passed, but wow.”
Since shooting the video, Kalavera found a permanent home.
And while Wurfel is happy that the cat found a home, she does miss the cat. Though, she matter-of-factly said she’s glad she has her video to be able to go back and see Kalavera whenever she wants.
Wurfel has her own pets — a beagle named Boo, who was sitting with her during the interview, and her cat named Twilight who she called an “absolute menace” because she’s always getting onto tables in the house and knocking glasses of water onto the floor.
According to her dad, Wurfel’s video advanced through local, district and state competitions before earning national recognition.
“She developed the interview questions,” he said, “shot the entire film herself using a Canon camera, conducted an interview with the veterinarian who treated Kalavera and who was helping rehome her, and edited the film using Premiere Pro.”
Her dad added that he taught Wurfel how to use the editing software last year. A documentary filmmaker himself, he was proud to say that while he gave his daughter some filmmaking tips and know-how, he did not do the work for her. That’s all her, he said.
This has been the case for other projects she’s done, as well.
“I always make it a point to guide her,” her dad said. “I set things up, but I make sure that she does it all herself.”
He added that he’s previously judged science fair projects and can tell when a parent has done all the work. He didn’t want that for his own kid. He said he’s always wanted his daughter to be more hands-on.
Meadows Elementary School Principal Janette Van Gelderen said she could vouch for the effort Wurfel puts into all the work she does. During a recent telephone interview, she spoke about how proud she was of Wurfel for her thoughtful approach to her video project and for her accomplishment.
“She really brought the idea and that theme to life,” Van Gelderen said. “She’s so talented, and it just was a really exciting experience for her to win at our school level and then the community level, state and the national levels. She’s very deserving of the award.”
Van Gelderen added that Wurfel is involved in so many school activities and that she’s always hard-working, thoughtful and respectful, someone with an exciting future ahead of her.
As for what’s next, Wurfel’s dad said they’ve been entering “Kalavera the Tripod Cat” into film festivals. Wurfel said she’s also thinking about creating a YouTube channel where she can make more videos that explore scientific subject matter. One project she’s already considering is an exploration of scoliosis.
“I was going to my physical checkup, and for the kids, they have you bend over and they feel your back, and they felt that — I think they could feel either the curve or how one part of my back was higher than the other,” she said. “They checked a few more things, and I was diagnosed with scoliosis.”
Now she wants to learn more about it. And she wants to document it.
According to her dad, Wurfel is just a very curious person. He said she’s also a Girl Scout, a two-time science fair winner, a member of the Canyons Aquatic Club swim team, she plays cello, and she placed third in district photography in last year’s Reflections.
As for her success with the cat video she made, Wurfel is still taking it in.
“I’m not completely freaking out about it, which tells me that I’m not fully comprehending it yet,” she said. “But this is all very new to me because, well, I’m 10.”
To view Wurfel’s project on YouTube, go to bit.ly/3YM49vI.
