Searcy(LP) Student Congress (StuCo) is a very prestiges event. Students from all over high school and college join and debate on bills that could help improve Arkansas. The ACTAA (Arkansas Communication and Theatre Arts Association) runs this event and many other events. Student congress is a three day event broken off to work as a two house and one senate congress. The meaning of StuCo changes for many people, students take an oath to make Arkansas better and to uphold ourselves to the highest level, so that we are representing ACTAA and the Congress in a positive and successful manner. Some people use it to win awards and use it for points instead since it is a debate competition. For Royce Thompson sophomore at Searcy High School “StuCo is congress for students who want to learn how the system works.” This year unlike any other year the Senate was in the real Senate room in the Capital Building while the Houses took turns in the Old Court Justice room and the Meeting room.

The first day of Student Congress was Sunday, November 13. At two in the afternoon students started to campaign for House and Senate speakers, clerks, Party leaders, and secretaries. After campaigning was meetings then Party voting. The meetings involved letting students new rules, taking oaths, and starting off StuCo with a positive start. The Party voting was when the competition started. Judges wrote how much students used proper procedure and spoke. Roberts rules are the procedures that is used in real congress and at other official meetings. After the voting was over it was time to look at the bills in our committee meetings. Student written bills get voted on and edited by amendments just as regular bills in a real congress setting would. The debate really starts in this area.

The second day all students meet in the State Capital Building. Each house has a different room and a different set of bills to discuss and amend. In student congress the goal is to pass as many as possible to make our state better. There are 3 sections separated by breaks. The first session is a debate on if the democrat speaker or the republican speaker takes the house and leads the rest of the sessions. After a leader is chosen the bills that passed through committee are put in the priority one, two, and three. The list of priority one is discussed first. The day usually does end until about 7:00 p.m.

Day three is the last day to participate. The bills debated on for house 1 and 2 are senate bills that passed through senate. For the senate the bills debated are house 1 and 2 bills. There are only two sessions that day with breaks then a rules and regulations meeting. The rules and regulations meeting is where students choose who to think and what rules to recommend to the leaders of student congress for the next year. After this meeting the students have a reward assembly where rules and regulations from each house are presented and where scores are counted and released for the students. Speaking scores range from 0-5 and the same scores for parliamentary procedure. Royce said “I would probably be interested in congress to make an impact on the world.”