Trayvontae Lewis, the current President of the iJAG class who has been in iJAG for 3 years at Mason City high school, had gotten the opportunity to compete in the annual iJAG conference in Washington D.C. Tray loves to talk and speak in front of people, so his teacher thought the public speaking competition was a perfect fit him. Through the National Student Leadership Academy, Tray sent in a paper to the program about his life, iJAG, and how it affected him. Tray was then accepted to compete in public speaking in Des Moines.
The state conference was located at the Nationwide building in Des Moines, where students across Iowa met to compete in public speaking, mathematics, project-based learning, and interviewing. Here 39 students competed, with 16 making it to Washington D.C. During the competition itself, students would have to present by telling 4 judges what they’re passionate about and their life story. This also included presenting on ways to improve themselves for the future. If selected, students would also have to do an “elevator pitch” to prove they were qualified to go to D.C.
During Tray’s speech, he talked about his childhood in foster care, and eventually his move to Mason City. Here, Tray began to get involved with the iJAG program, along with volunteering and eventually fell in love with the program. Tray ended up being one of the 16 chosen to go to Washington D.C, the only one representing Mason City High School.
During Tray’s six-day trip, he got to see and experience many new things. During his trip, Tray got to tour the Capital and got to see the White House. He also had an interview with the CEO of John Deere, got to see Donald Trump talking about tax reform, went shopping, and met tons of new people.
Tray had stated that the trip was, “a once in a lifetime experience for me”. Over the trip, Tray had said he, “learned about diversity and about accepting other people because of the diverse community there”. He also mentioned he learned quite a bit about leadership from the classes he attended there.
A message Tray would like to broadcast to the Mason City Community would be, “ To never give up on anything in life. If there’s a will, there’s a way”. Tray had mentioned how he took a quote to heart to help motivate him along his journey, in which he likes to think of fear as ”false evidence appearing real”. Tray also stated that, “The only way is up if you just apply yourself”. For future plans, Tray is working towards the University of Iowa, where he will pursue a field in iJAG, becoming a specialist, where he will work himself from the bottom to the top and run an iJAG program one day.