BIDDEFORD — Move over Madame Tussauds, the annual Wax Museum returned to St. James School in Biddeford on Thursday and to rave reviews from visitors.

Launched more than a decade ago by St. James third-grade teacher Estelle Beauchesne, the one-day only exhibition was the culmination of more than a month of preparation for students and their families. Students were tasked with choosing a famous character from history, learning all they could about them from a book about their character’s life, creating a display with pertinent facts about their character and then standing by dressed as their character with a memorized speech telling Wax Museum visitors about their character.

“The initial idea for us doing this came from a teacher friend of mine in Portland,” Beauchesne said. “She read an article about having students create a wax museum along with a book report and we’ve modified to fit our school.”

Beauchesne said that it’s a challenging assignment for students because they are graded on every facet of the activity.

“They learn about the history of their character and they learn about the history of the characters other classmates choose,” she said. “They have to make creative displays and for many of these students, it’s their first introduction to public speaking.”

Conducted in two hour-long sessions in the morning and afternoon in the St. James School Library, the Wax Museum saw a steady stream of visitors ranging from parents to fellow students to curious parishioners of Good Shepherd Parish.

Third-grader Addison Barrs chose Saint Teresa of Calcutta for her Wax Museum presentation.

“I picked her because she’s an excellent role model,” Barrs said. “I learned a lot about her life and didn’t know that she is credited with performing two miracles.”

Barrs said it took her two or three weeks to put her Wax Museum presentation together, including her dress and multiple fact displays.

“The one thing I hope to take away from this experience in learning about Saint Teresa is to be more patient like she was and to try and help people,” Barrs said. “She was very unselfish and giving to others.”

Eric Edstrom of Biddeford is the grandfather of third-grader Grace Edstrom, who portrayed Milton Hershey, the American chocolate manufacturer.

Edstrom toured the Wax Museum and liked what he experienced there.

“I love it,” Edstrom said. “It’s great and it’s apparent that a lot of hard work went into this. The kids are really into it and I actually learned a few things I didn’t know abut these characters from history.”

Students portraying characters included Addison Barrs (Saint Teresa of Calcutta); William Carson (John F. Kennedy); Faith Conant (Anne Frank); Grace Edstrom (Milton Hershey); Adam Frederickson (Steve Irwin); Chloe Gendron (Saint Rose of Lima); Brayden Houle (Bruce Lee); Olivia Hunter (Rosa Parks); Logan LeBlanc (Stan Lee); Ella Madden (Susan B. Anthony); Cora Saucier (Selena Quintanilla); Nicholas Searcy (Jesus); Kiera Shea (Queen Elizabeth I); and Eloise Talmage (Princess Diana).

St. James Principal Nancy Naimey said when she made the announcement before school Thursday that the Wax Museum would be opening, she noticed a buzz among students, teachers and staff about the event.

“Each year I enjoy watching the students transform themselves into historical figures,” she said. “Throughout the day I heard students in other classes talking about who they might see this year and who they were when they were characters in the Wax Museum.”

Naimey said students in lower grades wondered about what historical characters they would portray and those in upper grades discussed their own Wax Museums characters from when they were in third grade.

“The Wax Museum is really like a rite of passage for these students at St. James,” Naimey said. “They’re really quite adorable.”

— Executive Editor Ed Pierce can be reached at 282-1535 or by email at editor@journaltribune.com