YAG Goes to Harrisburg

By Cora Myers (Junior)

Every year Obama’s Youth and Government club takes a trip to Harrisburg to represent the school at a mock government convention called Model. This year, the delegation made the trip from the 13-16th of April. Obama has one of the biggest delegations in the state, and has continued to make their presence known at this statewide convention. There are 3 branches represented at the convention: legislative, judicial, and press. Legislative delegates write bills throughout the year; these bills are then debated through committee, where they must pass in order to be debated on the house and senate floors. Judicial is given a Pennsylvania supreme court case at the beginning of the year. They write briefs regarding this case, and present oral arguments in front of the court, in a tournament style debate. Finally, press delegates are split into 4 groups: photography, videography, social media, and written. Photographers work with the written group on the Capitol Chronicle, the daily newspaper. They also work with social media to make posts on Instagram. Videography puts together videos recapping the weekend experience.  

Delegates from Obama were honored this year with the The Sam Condrick Spirit Award, these students were: Mariah Gaines, Rayshawn Alexander, and Diya Singh. Miriam Spak—a legislative delegate, was given the award of Outstanding Committee Chair, and one of our press delegates—Mariah Gaines, was honored with the Outstanding Press Photographer award for the second year in a row. Accompanying these awards, multiple delegates were selected for the Conference on National Affairs (better known as CONA) and one judicial delegate was selected to participate at the National Judicial Competition (NJC). The CONA selectees were Sean Gaines, Aavin Mangalmurti, Diya Singh, and Miriam Spak. The NJC selectee was Kenza Bey, who also served as an associate justice on the Supreme Court this year. Miriam Spak, and co-sponsor Aavin Mangalmurti, unanimously passed the Gynecological Malpractice Act, and had it signed by the governor.

The final achievement this year was the outcome of the gubernatorial election, in which Diya Singh was elected to serve as the 2023-2024 Youth Governor of Pennsylvania. She will be leading Youth & Government students from across the state throughout this next year. Congratulations to our Obama Youth & Government delegates who attended the state Model Convention in Harrisburg! A special congratulations to the students who were honored for their accomplishments.