Monday was a day of celebration for Parsons High School’s student congress participants as they came home from the national qualifying tournament with their first national qualifier in more than 15 years, Axl Ramirez.
Pittsburg has owned the qualifying positions for years, but this year Ramirez nabbed one of six available slots.
Forensics coach Ed Workman said he has made it a priority to get a strong student congress going again.
“It’s always difficult to create the culture of an event,” Workman said. “There’s certain preparation that you have to do to be good at an event. When there really aren’t any role models or mentors near the competitor’s age to show them the way, you have to be really creative and cultivate ways to instill those practices.”
Workman said it’s like in football when seniors are in the weight room so freshmen understand they need to be in the weight room.
“It’s the same with congress. There is certain research you should do, speech writing you should do, and when you have the leadership doing it, you have people coming in and seeing this is how you do it. But when you are resurrecting a program, you have to say to the people, ‘We need you to do this and this is how you do it,’ and they look at you like you’re slightly crazy. There isn’t that reassurance and bond from their peers to say, ‘No seriously. This is how we do it.’”
Workman said his assistant Adam Payne has done a fantastic job at getting students involved and doing the leg work Workman cannot personally do handling other forensic events.
“He has really pushed and followed up with that and it really paid off yesterday,” Workman said.
Parsons took nine students. Seven competed in the house of representatives and two in the senate.
Out of the house, four are chosen to compete at nationals. Out of the senate, two are chosen.
“At the end, Pittsburg got five and we got one,” Workman said. “Senator Axl Ramirez is going to go to the national tournament in Phoenix, Arizona, this summer to return Parsons to the national stage after about a 15-year break, I would say.”
Ramirez’s name has not been a top placer in recent competitions.
“At the very beginning of the year, he said, ‘I want to find a way to go to nationals.’ I said OK, the only way to go to nationals is you have to commit.’
“As he was holding his qualifier’s plaque and letting it soak in, ‘I said, ‘Axl, well you called your shot that you were going to make it happen,’ and he said, ‘You know, I listened to you and I just put it all out there, just went for it.’”
It’s Ramirez’s senior year and Workman said it’s probably the first time at the congress competition he has said he is not going to worry what others are thinking, how his speech was going to match up and he was going to present the best that he had.
“It pays off,” Workman said.
On the house of representatives side, Workman said Parsons also had a student who qualified as a first alternate, Madelyn Armitage.
“She’s coming along and her confidence is growing. She is sitting in the sixth spot, but already, one of the people who qualified for nationals in congress is going in policy debate already, so that spot goes to the person in front of Madelyn. If someone in the other three (seats) qualify in something else they would rather compete in, then she is going to the national tournament.”
Jayce Quirin placed eighth at the national qualifying tournament.
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