RCHS Y-CLUB ROCKS!

This past weekend 45 student members of the Rockcastle County High School Y-club traveled to Louisville to attend the Kentucky Youth Assembly, a Youth-in-Government program designed to provide hands-on experience in the Executive, Legislative, and Judicial branches of government. As part of the overall experience, students ran for various leadership positions, served on committees, presented bills, argued cases, and debated passionately.

At the conference, senior, Devin Davidson served as a Justice in the Judicial Program having been selected in 2008 after serving as advocate in the program; senior, Bethany Clontz was selected to serve as a Committee Chair after having run as a candidate for the Executive Council in 2008, and sophomore, Emily Clark, served as the Premiere President of the Senate, as a result of being elected to the position at the 2008 conference.

In the Legislative program, designed for sophomores and juniors, Brittany Adams did an outstanding job representing RCHS as a candidate for Senior Executive Council. Will McClure, Media Corp member; Rebecca Martin and Robert Reynolds, lobbyists; and Starla Bond and Will Walker, Legislative Delegates, debated the various bills presented at the conference.

In the Premiere program, Heather Clontz also did a terrific job representing her school and county as a candidate for Premiere Executive Council. Both Brittany and Heather will be eligible to serve on the leadership team for the 2010 conference. Matthew Gonzalez, parliamentarian; Samantha Payne, Josh Linville, Cali Parker and Crystal Reddington, Premiere Delegates, debated the various bills presented in the program.

As part of the learning the democratic process, students came up with ideas for bills to be presented at the conference. Many of the ideas for bills stem from students’ personal concerns, experiences and from issues that they have heard about in the classroom and on the news. Some of the ideas for bills included changing Kentucky’s primary election date from late May to early February, reducing the involvement of government in local business, protecting citizens’ right to privacy, protecting religious freedoms in schools and amending the U.S. Constitution to eliminate the Electoral College in favor of electing the President through popular vote.

Legislative Bills author teams included: Justin Poynter, Marie Poynter, Kara Canterbury, Rachel Nicely; Tim Kirby and Ethan Miller; Bailey Lake and Sarah Woodall. Premiere bill author teams included: Hannah Eaton, Charity Adams, Jade Taylor, and Ashton Arvin and Premiere authors Aaron Adkisson, Rachel Johnson, Garrett Hasty and Alexis Young received an Outstanding Bill Award for their work. Out of the five bills presented at the conference, three were highly ranked in committee and the bill authors went on to present their bills in the House and Senate Chambers in Frankfort.

In the Judicial program, Jordan Robinson, Derek Jones, Jay Patel, and Taylor Greene served as advocates. The group was assigned a mock case in which they were assigned to argue its constitutionality. As a result of his outstanding performance in the courtroom, Derek Jones was selected by the current student justices to serve as a justice at the 2010 conference.

Seniors participated in the Congressional Program where they debated bills of national importance. Congressional authors were Joanie Alexander, Megan Randolph and Andrea Gonzalez. Congressional Delegates included Regina Rice, Chelsea Whiteley, Richard Barron and Matthew Fletcher.

Kara Canterbury and Hannah Bullock both received Outstanding Speaker Awards for their exceptional speaking abilities and as a result have received an invitation to attend the 2010 Conference on National Affairs where outstanding students from all over the United States gather to debate bills of national and international importance. Congratulations to all who attended this year's KYA! Good job!