Ugh- my third attempt at posting....
Regarding history bee, it is an after school enrichment activity here, but it started a few years ago with one or two kids who were interested and convinced a social studies teacher to support them. I am pretty sure that at least one kid competed without a team (perhaps he joined a team of independents or homeschoolers, not sure, but he had moved up to the high school which didn't have its own team.) You might want to poke around their website or do some searches, I think it is a relatively new activity. Our school ended up traveling to a neighboring state to compete, because not enough kids here signed up, so it may really depend on location as to whether he can find some interested buddies (but perhaps there is a way to connect long distance through the organizers of the bee?)
I can't remeber how old your kid is, but is there any chance he could sit in on any clubs or activities at a local high school? Aside from history day, there are several history-related clubs here where he might find like-minded people. Model UN might be a good fit, though I suspect he might not be allowed to fully participate; middle-schoolers here can apply to serve as pages, which is fun and a neat way to observe all the goings-on. Perhaps a community-based reenactment group (though not likely to focus on the Crimean war...)?
