This past Wednesday, Lafayette took thirty-four students to the Kentucky United Nations Assembly, or KUNA, a three-day Model United Nations conference hosted at the Galt House in Louisville. Lafayette represented two nations, Australia and Costa Rica, learning skills of diplomacy, cultural empathy, and the perspective and views of other nations. The KUNA that Lafayette attended was the second of three total conferences.

Teagan Fowler, vice president of the Lafayette Y-Club, served as Director-General of UNESCO (U.N. Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization), a major presiding officer position, while Zaida Bell served as an Associate Editor of the Media Corps and David Hensley served as a judge on the International Court of Justice (ICJ), both supporting officer positions respectively.

Lafayette’s delegation sponsored two resolutions, one for Australia and Costa Rica each. Australia’s resolution sponsors were Jenna Moseley, Violet Updike, Landon Lepley, and Holland Kantar, while Costa Rica’s resolution sponsors were Ellie Naish, Eloise Logsdon, and Annelise Brown. Australia’s resolution was chosen as a School’s Choice resolution.

In the special program areas, Lafayette had an ICJ team consisting of Zoya Abbas, Malik Mulder, and C.J Barnette. The Security Council team, representing the United Kingdom, consisted of Logan Ward and Brit Buchanan, while Vidhi Buch represented human rights-centric organizations through the Non-Governmental Organization (NGO) program. Aileen Connor served on the broadcasting team for the Media Corps.

Additionally, Arden Ensor, formerly Speaker of the House at KYA 3, served as a committee chair and was later selected alongside three other students to serve as one of the Vice Presidents of the Voting Committees.

Nate Barker ran as a presiding officer candidate, though unfortunately was not elected. However, ICJ Justice David Hensley was appointed to serve as one of the two ICJ Presidents, a presiding officer position.

During the awards ceremony, Annelise Brown won outstanding ambassador, Nel Afenya, Josh Smith, and Sofia Wu won outstanding speaker awards, while Vidhi Buch won the Secretariat award for the NGO/ Secretariat program and Mailk Mulder was selected as an outstanding advocate for the ICJ program.

As a whole, Lafayette was selected to be a premier delegation and also won the Outstanding Statesmanship award, signifying the greatest contribution among any delegation to debate.

The Lafayette Times congratulates all students who participated in KUNA for this year, as well as the sponsor, Ms. Sherri McPherson, and two chaperones, Kyle Smith and Jessica Ensor, and wishes our delegation luck at future conferences.