Grant Root, Kelsi Kilgore, and Corban Sorrells have been helping LJH Debate in the past weeks by attending the meets, and practices. The junior high students have recently attended a debate tournament competing against high school kids where they won several awards.

“There’s nothing that gives me more pride in my students than seeing them become teachers themselves,” debate teacher Rory McKenzie said. “These kids have done such a good job, giving up so much of their time to help them, every single week, they have devoted time after school to help kids at the junior high.  These seniors are leaving behind a legacy and I am so proud of them.”

The seniors spend time every week after school to help these junior high kids prepare for competitions and high school. They teach the kids debate early so they will be able to transition into high school debate easier.

“I was given the position from our speech and debate team as the junior high correspondent, which means I go and work with the junior high speech and debate club,” Root said. “In order to get them involved with the high school debate team that way when they’re a freshman they can compete without taking half a year to start competing.”

The kids have been working with the seniors to prepare for the contest they recently attended where they came home with several medals including: Impromptu Speaking, Novice, and 7th grade Novice.

“The Junior Highers recently competed at John Tyler which was actually a varsity debate tournament,” senior Kelsi Kilgore said. “They did really well. We had two teams that actually placed 2nd and 3rd, which is really impressive because they were competing against older, high school kids.”