Leguejou Awunganyi, who goes by her middle name Felicity, is a senior at FHS who is part of the speech and debate program. She originally had an interest in speech and debate during her sophomore year, but it was not offered to her then. However, “…[in junior year] Ms. Beachboard, who taught me in eighth grade, came over here and started the club,” said Awunganyi.
She is extremely passionate about speech and debate and how she can use the skills she learned from it in the future. Awunganyi stated, “Speech and debate honestly just gives us that space to disagree effectively, and we see an issue with that in politics today where people can’t disagree without offending each other.” Speech and debate also has greatly inspired Awunganyi’s planned career path. Awunganyi said, “It makes me want to go into Congress or Senate.” Unfortunately, as she is not a natural-born citizen, she cannot run for president, even though she’d like to. However, she still wants to be in some sort of legislative body in the United States and speak for the people.
Based on Awunganyi’s record this speech and debate competition season, her future in these areas is bright. She recently won first place in the Virginia state competition for “prompt due speaking.” Last year she won fourth place for the same competition, so winning first this year solidified how much she has improved. “It was really nice because it was my last speech competition, and I’m a senior, so it was really, really heartfelt and emotional to win that,” said Awunganyi.
Not only has she placed many times, but she has also won scholarships from these competitions. She won the Virginia Elks State Scholarship for four thousand dollars. Recently, she won the Amazon Future Engineers scholarship, which is a scholarship for forty thousand dollars total, so ten thousand dollars per year. It comes with a paid internship next summer after the first year of college. It was given to only 40 students from a pool of 36 different districts. Awunganyi mentioned that this scholarship in particular wasn’t too difficult to apply for, and that younger students should apply if they are able. “All we had to do was put in two rec letters, and you had to write two essays and I think your parents needed some sort of tax forms,” said Awunganyi.
Although she hasn’t fully decided yet, Awunganyi is planning on going to Virginia Tech for computer science, and she’s extremely excited for what awaits her at whichever school she attends.
