Polson students shine at UM world issues debate

by Head Coach Polson Speech Team & Jon Petersen
| December 5, 2014 9:30 AM

MISSOULA – Polson High School’s Model United Nations team recently returned from the 49th annual Montana Model Untied Nations Conference. The conference was held at the University of Montana from November 24-25, 2014. It was attended by 380 students from 19 Montana and Idaho high schools.

The Polson High School students represented Spain. Each student participated in one of five committees.

Representing Spain were Kania Smith on the General Assembly Plenary, Jaiden Toth on the General Assembly First Committee (security issues), Thomas Sylvester on the General Assembly Second Committee (economic and financial issues), and Taylor Rost on the General Assembly Third Committee (social, cultural, and humanitarian issues).

Spain does not sit on the Security Council.

At Model UN conferences, students participate in simulations of Unites Nations sessions, debating, negotiating, caucusing, drafting and voting on resolutions that address world problems.

The following Polson High School students won awards: Jaiden Toth for Honorable Delegate and Distinguished Position Paper, and Taylor Rost for Top 20 Senior and Honorable Position Paper.

Polson High School also won the Distinguished School award for small delegation.

Polson High School Students prepared for the conference under the direction of teachers Abby Connolly and Katie Rehberg.

Funds to attend the conference were provided by Polson High School.

The conference began on Monday, Nov. 24, with opening ceremonies and a keynote address on “Ebola: Me, Them, and the UN” by Professor Peter Koehn, an expert on international development and public health. Students then met in their committees from late Monday morning through Tuesday afternoon.

A list of the topics each committee considered is posted online at http://www.cas.umt.edu/mun/hstopicg.html. Each committee had a faculty guest speaker.

Individual, country, and school awards were announced during the closing ceremonies on Tuesday.

Five high school seniors were awarded scholarships to attend UM.

For more information about the Montana Model UN conference, see http://www.cas.umt.edu/mun. To interview club members, contact advisor Katie Rehberg at krehberg@polson.k12.mt.us or (406) 698-7543.