Topeka ? Sixteen-year-old Cassie Blackwell may have been born about 150 years too late.

The Topeka teen lives for history.

With a passion for the past, especially the pre-Civil War Bleeding Kansas era, Blackwell volunteers nearly every week with the Lecompton Reenactors, a group of historians dedicated to educating the public about the early days of Kansas statehood.

“I’ve loved history for a long time,” said Blackwell, who first came in contact with the re-enactors about two years ago. “When I was in eighth grade, I saw these guys perform, and I wanted to be a part of it.”

The Lecompton Reenactors perform monologues based on real people who were influential in the founding of the state. In eighth grade, Blackwell chose to volunteer with the nonprofit group because she needed service hours for National Honor Society.

More than two years later, Blackwell, now a sophomore at Seaman High School, is still working with the group almost every weekend. The character she portrays, Mrs. Thomas Barber, has become her alter ego.

“I know anything and everything there is to know about Matilda Barber – no rock left unturned about her,” Blackwell said. “We have to know everything. We get a lot of questions, especially when we’re performing for schools.”

Members of the Lecompton Reenactors, who do bus tours and perform for Statehouse crowds on Kansas Day at the request of Gov. Kathleen Sebelius, are given the responsibility of knowing the characters they portray and being as accurate as possible.

Though Blackwell didn’t write the script for her monologue, she did do research to learn about her character – hundreds of hours of research, she said. She knows Barber was the wife of the first man killed during Bleeding Kansas, lived on the Barber Bottoms Homestead that now sits at the bottom of Clinton Lake and predicted her husband’s death the morning before he left to fight.

Blackwell also worked with a seamstress to create a costume, which was paid for out of her own pocket. And the costumes can cost anywhere from $100 to close to $1,000.

“Everyone takes pride in their characters and in history,” Blackwell said. “They expect you to know what you’re talking about and to be accurate with what you wear.”

Tim Rues, administrator for Lecompton’s Constitution Hall, where the company is based, said he has never had a problem with Blackwell’s knowledge of Barber or her portrayal of the character.

“I think anyone would be impressed by Cassie,” Rues said. “The good thing about having Cassie is that she is young and a lot of the influential people on the frontier at the time were also young. It’s great to have her to perform these parts. She’s very talented.”

Rues said Blackwell not only is talented but also is the youngest of the re-enactors, which is usually a group of 10. Rues said he would like about 10 more Blackwells for the group.

Jacqueline White-Routh, Blackwell’s mother, said she was never surprised by her daughter’s passion for re-enacting, even at her young age.

“When she said she wanted to do it, I knew it was a big commitment. But she said it was really what she wanted,” White-Routh said. “My husband and I are big history buffs. Her grandmother is a history buff. I guess it’s ingrained in her.”