A life lesson, just not their own Zach Jensen (left) portrays Thomas Jefferson, while Brett Baeten dresses as Andrew Jackson during the Biography Breakfast in Anna Toonen's third grade classroom at Our Lady of Lourdes Catholic School Tuesday (photo by H. Marc Larson). Students study biographies By Anna Krejci News-Chronicle Where else can 13th century trader Marco Polo meet U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor but in Anna Toonen's third-grade classroom at Our Lady of Lourdes School in De Pere. Students, most of them in costume, assumed the roles of present-day or historical persons as part of "Biography Breakfast" on Tuesday. Students introduced themselves as the people they portrayed to their classmates over a morning snack of baked goods, cereal and juice. Among them was third-grader Dayton Green, who suited up as candy-maker Milton Hershey whose ancestors from Switzerland and Germany settled in Pennsylvania in the 1700s, according to the Hershey company Web site. "I just thought it would be fun to be him," Green said, adding he would consider owning a chocolate shop. Each year Toonen's students select figures to study and portray after reading their biographies. "Biographies are kind of new to third-graders," she said, and this year the students seemed to be more enthralled with history, especially after they read a book about pilgrims earlier in the school year. "The idea of the story was we all are pilgrims," Toonen said. In the seven or eight years that Toonen has led her students in the activity, she said she has never seen a Marco Polo, but she usually sees a John F. Kennedy and George Washington, as well as a Clara Barton, who founded an enduring Red Cross Society in America and Girl Scout Founder Juliette Low. Among the figures represented in Tuesday's class were Amelia Earhart, Queen Elizabeth I, Helen Keller and Harriet Tubman. Jenessa Butler, dressed in a sweater and skirt and wearing a large pair of glasses without lenses, assumed the role of Rosa Parks. Butler read Parks' biography in three days. "It was kind of a sad book," Butler said, referring to the racial discrimination Parks faced when she was asked to sit in the back of a Montgomery Alabama city bus in the 1950s. Tanner Boyea, armed with a plastic sword fastened to his waste, represented Sir Francis Drake. "I kind of like exploring," he said, and cited his fascination with boats as another reason why he chose to be the first 14th century Englishman to circumnavigate the world. Mitchel Bixby dressed as author J.R.R. Tolkien, his favorite author. He said he likes "The Lord of the Rings" trilogy, both the books and the movies. "It's got action, it's got violence, it's PG-13 and it won 11 academy awards," he said before giving an introductory presentation about Tolkien. Toonen said the school would see her students as they toured the building in costume. "We'll live and die by these names today," she said Tuesday, adding that today everyone will be themselves again.