Mckay at the BYU Model United Nations tournament.

 McKay went with the WXHS Debate team to a Model United Nations tournament at BYU. This is part of what was written on the schools home page:

"The Woods Cross debate team dominated at the BYU Model United Nations tournament.  For many of our school’s representatives it was their very first M.U.N. competition.

Our team was assigned two countries that we were to represent almost a month prior to the tournament, France and Djibouti. The participants then were assigned a country, a committee of the UN and a topic that the UN is currently debating about. Each student was required to write a policy paper which describes how their country has been affected by this issue as well as purpose solutions for the international problem.

A MUN tournament is not a short day. The representatives left at 7:30 am and were there past 6:00 pm. In that amount of time everyone attended the introduction ceremony and then filed into rooms with their designated committee. The next step is to set the agenda, a long grueling process where representatives all decide which order they will discuss the topics in. Once the order has been determined, representatives state their countries views and opinions on the world wide issue.  Then they form different groups who write papers promoting their resolution with supporting evidence that will guarantee a successful change.

At the end of the day all of the students made our school very proud. Being part of the M.U.N. teaches students important life skills such as how to communicate well, how to compromise, and how to quickly and efficiently write papers. To McKay Holbrook teamwork is the most valued life skill that you are taught from this experience.  “One of the most important qualities to gain from M.U.N. is the value of teamwork. As well as becoming a leader because if you are incapable of leading as well as delegating you will be unable to place.”

Woods Cross had an extremely successful tournament day. Our team took first place with the country of France and third place with Djibouti. As well as many impressive personal victories including, second place in the Security Council by McKay Holbrook & Steve Bennion. First place in the General Assembly was awarded to Luke Hansen & Kaestle Charlesworth. In ECOSOC Annie Holm & Luke Jowers took second place.

 Here are the team that went to BYU. What a wonderful group of young people.

McKay with his diploma that he got from second place!

Here you can see McKay in the "paper" at BYU. He was quoted and his picture was taken.

Our team that represented France took FIRST place. There was only given out one FIRST place among ALL the 50 countries that day and it went to WXHS Debate team. We do have a great team and WXHS has taken first place in State for the last 16 years in a row. Great job team, you are AWESOME!!