Debate students junior Ainsley Smith and senior Haley Bass have rebooted the Junior High Speech and Debate program with practices every Wednesday. Junior High students gave their first ‘all-about-me’ speech this Wednesday, focusing on the speech skills necessary to help them succeed in their high school career.

“My ultimate goal from this experience is to teach these kids that their voice matters and that, through speech and debate, they can find a way to convey their passion,” Bass said. “I want them to know that their age doesn’t matter, but rather the content of the things they say and how they use their voice to convey their feelings.”

One junior high student, Julia Montgomery, recently competed at the Whitehouse tournament in congressional debate, marking the first junior high student to compete this year.

“I’m very proud of Julia for her work in congressional debate at Whitehouse,” Smith said. “She put in the hard work and stood up to the challenge, and it was really cool to see a junior high student already so interested in speech and debate.”

Bass and Smith have held their junior high practices in English teacher Lisa Vader’s room. The two begin their practices by showing them videos of National finalist pieces and discussing their many aspects as well as what we could learn from them.

“We’re very thankful for Mrs. Vader for allowing us to use her room,” Bass said. “It’s been hard to find a sponsor but now that we have one and we’ve finally got these practices set up, things are running very smoothly, and I’m very excited for the future of these kids.”