Spending a Friday night arguing about historical and current world topics doesn’t seem like the average teenager’s idea of a good time. But that’s exactly what Leesville’s Model United Nations team spent their weekend doing at the 18th Annual Model UN Conference at Chapel Hill (MUNCH).
The conference began on Thursday, February 22, after school and lasted until that Sunday at noon. Despite the exhausting length of the conference, the MUN team won many awards, including Outstanding Delegate for Noah Dasanike (senior) and Jacob Ierston-Brown (senior), Tushar Varma (senior) and Maddie Stroud (senior), Max Pollack (sophomore) and Landon Gaddy (sophomore), and Mariana Herrera (junior) — in addition to a Verbal Commendations for several others.
“I’m extremely proud of our performance throughout the weekend. As long as our members are putting forth their best effort, I️’ll remain happy with our performance,” said Kathryn Falcinelli, a junior and the secretary of MUN.
Although Leesville’s MUN team is competitive, it is not their priority to win awards at conferences, but instead to gain skills for future conference– especially for the newer members. “Well at DUMUNC, the vast majority of attendees were new members whereas at MUNCH, we had a lot of upperclassmen and returning members… New members will soon learn the ropes and the number of awards won in future years are sure to increase,” said Falcinelli.
There will be no more conferences for the MUN team this year. However, the team next year is looking forward to continuing the success of this year’s team and are continuing to work hard at school to improve their public speaking, debating, and cooperative skills.
