2020 Mock Convention
The 40 student members of the Washington delegation built a float to ride on Main Street as seen above. 57 other floats would float down Main Street that day celebrating the start to the 2020 Mock Convention as well. Students put hours upon hours designing these floats. The final product may appear to be easily constructed, but power tools and many trips to Lowes is how most states built their floats from scratch. The head of the Washington delegation, Andrew Brouse, entrusted a group of nine seniors to help design the float in the image above, including Maggie Kidder, Lexie Gottsegen, Emma Pollard, Sydney McGrew, Kylie Lee, Liza Lanier, Evie Sarkes, and Adele Petagna. Unfortunately, Alabama took the prize in winning the best float award for 2020.
Hundreds of students rode in the 2020 Mock Convention parade. Above, four students show off their hard work on the Washington float by posing with their painting of The Needle in Seattle. The Needle was designed by senior Evie Sarkes. The vibrant sunset in the background was inspired by Lexington's own sunsets. Other favorite float ideas in the 2020 parade featured students dressing up in corn costumes for Idaho, students dressing up in lobster costumes for Maine, and even students dressing up as Mount. Rushmore for South Dakota. The floats are built on trailers that students must rent or purchase. The panels on the side of the floats are made from painting plywood and then attaching the plywood to the sides of the trailers. Many states spent weeks designing these floats.
For the Mississippi Float, students decorated their float with a Juke Box as well as wore festive "Mississippi attire". The floats allowed students from all different backgrounds to work together for one common goal, a finished float! Floats ranged from having 7 members to 120, but all floats were finished by February 14th to float down Main street. All floats were given an allocated budget to use for decorations and supplies. Students picked what state delegation they would be on based on their hometowns, what their friends were doing, or if their friends were state chairs.
Cameron Kasky was one of the 2020 Mock Convention speaker. Cameron is actually only 19 years old, which is younger than most of the students at Washington and Lee. At the convention, Cameron provided his personal experiences with gun violence, connecting to the many young convention attendees as he is similar to their age. Cameron co-founded the student-led gun violence prevention advocacy group, Never Again MSD. He also aided in helping organize the March for Our Lives student protest in 2018. Not only did Cameron talk about his views on gun violence at the convention, but he also spoke about his own personal experiences with mental illness. He was a very motivational speaker that encourages the crowd to never give up and keep fighting whether it be fighting gun violence or your own mental illnesses.
Trevor Noah is known to be a South-African Comedian. He hosts the Daily Show in America, but also works as a political commentator. Trevor Noah got students really excited for the convention as many students were fans of his. He provided very insightful political views at the convention. He had more of a neutral opinion of both political parties, which provided a breath of fresh air for the convention as the other speakers were very liberal. Noah offered an un-biased opinion given that he is from South Africa. His comedic ability made his session in the convention more light-hearted. The Mock Convention store sold Noah's book, Born a Crime, and the copies sold out at the convention. Although he was not the keynote speaker, Trevor Noah's session contained the largest audience.