STUDENT SPOTLIGHT
ELENA CECIL: Family, Tradition, and
Commitment to Service by Annie Reisener
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peech and debate has been a part of Elena Cecil’s life for as long as she can remember. In June, Elena was named the 2018 NSDA William Woods Tate, Jr., National Student of the Year. To understand how speech and debate has shaped Elena’s life, we have to begin in 1966, when Elena’s grandfather Garland founded the speech and debate program at Larue County High School. Garland had seen other high school programs from around the state, and he believed the activity would help students become good communicators. He spent the next 25 years building his team into a powerhouse team in Kentucky before turning it over to two of his daughters in turn.
Elena Cecil with her mom (and coach) Katy and dad Eric
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In 2009, Elena’s mom Katy Cecil took over the team and, as a result, Elena was raised surrounded by speech and debate. “For my family, speech isn’t an extra-curricular or a club,” Katy says. “It is a living, breathing entity in our lives; it drives much of our schedule and family time; and it represents an activity that has given us far more than we could ever give to it.” With a family legacy like that, it’s not surprising that Elena’s involvement in speech and debate started early. In third grade, she joined speech Little League, a program where students from Larue County High School introduce speech to younger students. When she reached middle school, she was coached by her mom, Katy, who led both the middle and high school programs at Larue County. From the beginning, Elena was
ROSTRUM | SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2018
striving to set herself apart from the pack. “Pretty much everyone in my family has done speech and debate,” she says. “I put a lot of pressure on myself to measure up to my mom, my grandpa, my aunt, and my cousins.” Having a family so entrenched in speech and debate was a doubleedged sword. “I had a lot of opportunities, like traveling nationally as a freshman, but I also had to work twice as hard to prove my success wasn’t just because I was the coach’s kid.” Elena wanted to be successful, but competition wasn’t what made her love speech. “It’s not about the trophies,” she says. “I was not the most successful. I never won first place at any tournament in my entire career. Not once. That wasn’t what mattered to me. It was about the people you meet and the way speech helps kids change. Everyone says speech and debate is like a big family, and for me it’s also really my family, but I think that’s true. You find your people.
You meet people from all different backgrounds with all different perspectives and that opens a whole new world of learning. I know that there isn’t a single activity out there that has ever made me feel as at home as speech did. I’ve tried it all and been involved in a lot, and there wasn’t anything out there that does what speech does for kids, that makes them feel as important, or as wanted, or as heard as speech does. I have seen speech and debate change lives. Witnessing that all my life is a privilege I’ve been lucky to have.” Katy has seen speech and debate impact Elena’s outlook far beyond the bounds of the activity. “Elena’s involvement in speech and debate helped her in many ways, but one of the most significant benefits she gained was an ability to see her own privilege and recognize the need that many others have in this world—she has become an infinitely more compassionate person because of her involvement in this activity.”