RNE Model UN Team brings home 19 awards from New York
Contributed by Richland Northeast High School

Nineteen Richland Northeast High School students won individual awards from the recent Ivy League Model UN Conference January 31- February 3 at the University of Pennsylvania. The students, all members of RNE's nationally recognized Model UN team, competed against more than 2,000 students on 182 delegations from private and public schools across the United States and China, which this year sent a team.

RNE's award winners and the areas they represented were Outstanding Delegate • Malaysia: Jessie Johnson, WHO Honorable Mention • Malaysia: Leacy Burke and Elyse Kriegshaber, Social and Humanitarian • Erin Harvey and Hermon Whaley, Science and Technology • Darby Shuler and Paul White, UNICEF • Ukraine, Francie Berger and John Parvin, UNDP

Verbal commendations • Malaysia: Kate Nielsen, Disarmament Tre'vell Anderson and Emily Padget, Special Political • Caroline Corley and Rachel Lourie, Legal • David Wile and Hallie Carde; Global Summit • Kelsey Stegall and Maggie Lawrence, Human Rights • Connie Ding, WHO

Led by faculty advisor Lynn Washington, the RNE Model UN team has racked up 18 consecutive years of first- place awards at the prestigious National Model UN Conference held each March in New York City. "Model UN is a strenuous program," said Washington. "To prepare for each of the year's three conferences, students spend hours and hours of independent study time developing position papers, which they present in much the same way as United Nations' delegates do in the General Assembly. Many also have to work to pay for the conference trips. A comparative few public schools nationwide take part in this program. Most of the delegations at Penn were from private schools."