Staples of prior Youth and Government (YAG) conventions—the two-hour trek to Jefferson City, the tradition of brunch at the Kingdom City McDonalds, the memories at the hotel with over 600 Missouri students—were all undoable in this year’s virtual format. However, despite the strangest convention in the Missouri YMCA Youth and Government’s 72-year history, the St. Louis U. High delegation still had many successes, with several Jr. Bills elected to office, passing bills, and winning selective awards.

The convention kicked off on Wednesday, Nov. 18 with a brief introductory session given by presiding officers. Seniors Connor Gunn, who served as a Speaker of the House, and Jack Rosenstengel, the Attorney General, both gave short speeches and then led breakout rooms in order for participants to become familiar with one another and Zoom protocol. The governor for the convention, Margaret Mathis from Cor Jesu’s delegation, gave an overview of the convention and the expectations of each participant.

“The opening session went a lot better than I had expected,” Rosenstengel said.  “It was such a powerful feeling seeing everyone from different schools come together, even virtually.”

YAG offered two tracks for students this year: daytime and evening. Since the convention could not be cleared as a field trip by SLUH, all of SLUH’s delegation participated in the evening sessions, beginning each night at 5:00 p.m. 

On Thursday, legislative and judicial sessions convened for committee sessions and initial trials. Senior Carter Spence and junior Taggart Arens served as Committee Chairs, each leading a breakout session for roughly a dozen legislative students. Legislative members in the committee voted on which bills they liked the most, and the top two bills from each committee advanced to the Saturday session.

Senior Luke Wagner’s bill, an act to establish the monarchy of Missouri, and Arens’ bill, a proposal to enter Missouri into the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact, both ranked in the top two of their committees and moved on to the Saturday session.

Thursday evening for the judicial branch started with a meeting for all trial participants. Led by Visitation High school’s Chief Justice Kirti Madhu and Rosenstengel, the meeting provided clarification for what the following three hours the evening would contain.

After the brief meeting, trial teams and judges broke out into one of three trial rooms to participate in an appellate-style court case. In each room, there were three judges and two sets of trial teams. During the hour allotted for each case, the petitioners and respondents were given 15 minutes each to present their argument. The judges asked questions throughout the trial, ending with feedback. These trials continued until the closing session on Saturday.

After breakout sessions ended at 8:30 p.m., the “meet the candidates” event was held. Candidates for Governor, Speaker of the House, Attorney General, Secretary of State, and Lieutenant Governor all participated in a question and answer forum handled by the media branch. Additionally, each candidate created a short two-minute video that was posted to YAG’s website in order to help inform the voters before the Friday election. Three SLUH candidates campaigned for office: Arens for Speaker of the House, junior Jack Feise for Attorney General, and junior Henry Ledbetter for Governor.

Other bills that ranked highly but did not reach the top two of their committee comprised the bill docket for Friday. A bill that passed on Friday was sent to the Governor Mathis, who decided whether or not to sign the legislation into YAG law. SLUH’s three bills debated on Friday—proposals from seniors Adam Garton and Sam Megown and junior Francis Alford—were passed and eventually signed into law.

Friday night for the judicial team consisted of three trials once again, the same format as Thursday evening. Trials went from 5:30-8:30 again, allowing attorneys to participate as both respondents and petitioners in the case. 

The YAG social was held on Friday night after each branch’s session concluded. Unlike prior years, where the annual YAG mixer would be held, the social was held via Zoom. While the absence of the mixer was saddening, the social allowed for fun group activities to be played virtually.

Saturday allowed every student, daytime or evening, to participate in one big session for their respective branch. On the legislative side, the top committee bills were debated from 10:00 a.m to 3:00 p.m. before the end of the convention. The two SLUH bills that made it to Saturday both failed to become law: Wagner’s bill failed by a 41-24 vote, and Arens’ was vetoed by Governor Mathis despite passing overwhelmingly in the chamber.

For the judicial branch, the daytime and evening session jury teams went head to head to determine who would make it to the semi-finals and eventually finals. After morning sessions to determine the strongest four attorneys, Rosenstengel and Madhu decided who would be moving on to the next stage of the competition. Junior Jack Feise was chosen to be one of the semi-finalists, and Junior Luke Pierson was the first alternate and also a semi-final participant due to another attorney’s inability to make the meeting at 1:00 pm. With great performances by both of SLUH’s semifinalists, Pierson moved on to the finals while Jack Feise and Harper Downing from the Francis Howell Delegation were unable to prevail against the eventual finalists. In the finals, Pierson and his partner, Lilly Sadlo from the St. Joseph’s Delegation, lost to the Viz Delegation team, consisting of Shri Anantha and Olivia Helfrey. Both Feise and Pierson were impressive during the competition and were excited to make it so far in YAG 2020.

“It was pretty surprising because a SLUH guy has never made it that far, and I was just caught up in the moment,” said Pierson. “Next year, there will be for sure another SLUH attorney in the finals because we know what it takes.”

At the conclusion of Saturday’s big group hearings, the final session was held, where awards were distributed and the election results were announced. After the presiding officers gave their closing speeches, they announced awards and their successors. From SLUH’s delegation, Wagner earned the outstanding statesman award, Megown earned the best bill award, and Pierson earned the best attorney award and was recognized as a judicial finalist. Arens was elected to one of the positions for Speaker of the House, and Feise was elected to Attorney General after a tiebreaking, virtual-wheel spin. Ledbetter’s campaign for Governor was unsuccessful, as he fell to Mexico YMCA’s Ben Clampitt.

Despite the challenges of this year’s virtual convention, SLUH is poised to have much success in the future, with two presiding officers and impactful experience in both the legislative and judicial branches.

“I’m very proud of how everyone in our program did this year, particularly the people I watched in judicial,” Rosenstengel said. “I’m very optimistic about SLUH’s YAG program in the coming years, and I leave YAG knowing we’re in good hands.”