On Mar. 7 and 8, five Louisburg High School LEO Club members went to Washburn University to compete in a leadership conference called the Leadership Challenge Event. The students were Jaden Scott and Regan Wertz, seniors; Amelia Baumgardner, junior; Matthew Parodi and Tanner Myers, sophomores.
At the conference, there were a total of twenty eight teams there. The teams would represent fictional candidate and form a campaign team. The teams were split up into different parties the Meadowlark Party, who represented Bryan Young, and the Cottonwood Party, who represented Kim Martens. Each team had a Campaign Manager, Political Analyst, Director of Public Relations, Director of Compliance and a Director of Field Operations.
“They did very well, I am so proud of them,” Kimberly Payton, LEO adviser, said.
Payton said that Louisburg students were competing against kids who have done this for the last three years and were able to compete right up there with them.
It all started on Thursday when the students did a run through and got prepared for Friday’s simulation. Afterwards, the students went to a banquet in the Memorial Union. The keynote speaker was Jason Kander, Missouri Secretary of State.
“It was really fun listening to the speaker, it was nice to listen to what he had to say”, Amelia Baumgardener, junior said.
On Friday the teams each got signed a room,which served as their campaign headquarters and had an introduction with the judge. The students had three rounds to get ready and then a final debate.
“It was stressful being the campaign manager because you had to help everyone and go talk to everyone, it was a lot to take on,” Baumgardner said.
Even though Louisburg did not place, everyone still had fun and felt like they learned a lot from this experience.
“I was interesting, we learned a lot about politics and it was a good time,” Myers, sophomore said.
The LEO club has been dong this for two years and they plan to continue to attend the event annually.