STUDENT SPOTLIGHT
JOANNA BAI 2019 WILLIAM WOODS TATE, JR., NATIONAL STUDENT OF THE YEAR by Annie Reisener
More than Words: Building Connections with Music
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oanna Bai joined the speech and debate team at Millard West High School in Nebraska as a freshman, primarily competing in Original Oratory and Dramatic Interpretation. Her favorite part of the activity has been watching the people around her share their stories. “Speech and debate taught me how to listen and connect with people,” Joanna says. “I learned how to show up for others and give them a chance to be vulnerable in a safe space. I think speech and debate teaches us a lesson that we aren’t taught other places at such a young age—that despite having so much to learn in life, what we’ve learned so far is valuable and meaningful to the world. We’re not just kids who talk on the weekends.
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Speech and debate gives us a place where we’re encouraged to use our voices to do more, to find our heartbeat in the world and chase after it.”
FINDING HER HEARTBEAT Joanna has always loved music and its ability to unify people. “I definitely think music transcends language and barriers. In times where we feel our lowest and most alone, music has no boundaries in helping us feel understood. You can take what you need from it,” Joanna says. “As a personal outlet, it can give you the space to process emotions, whether that’s getting hyped up for a tournament and dancing around in the hallways or having a good cry.”
ROSTRUM | SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2019
Joanna began piano lessons as a child and later branched out to choir, clarinet, and violin. At 16, she began to wonder if music could do for others what it did for her. “I was always involved in Special Olympics, so I knew the athletes personally and had seen that they loved music. I’d take them out to lunch or dinner, and we’d blare music in the car and sing at the top of our lungs.” Alongside her friend Carly Renken, she began planning a program where youth with disabilities can express themselves through music. In summer 2017, Special Musicians was born. Joanna was exploring the business world for the first time as co-CEO and co-founder of a 501(c)(3) non-profit. Special Musicians’ first session welcomed four
youths with disabilities to join them as musicians for one hour. With outreach and a website, word spread and participation grew. Two years later, there are 60 to 70 musicians on the roster and 50 to 60 volunteer instructors committed to providing the experience every Sunday. Depending on time in the program, ability, and comfort level, participants play instruments, learn music theory and terminology, write their own measures, or just feed off the music and energy filling the space. Joey Drwal, an incoming senior at Millard West High School who has been participating in Special Musicians for two years, loves the experience. “I do drums and piano and dance and sing,” Joey says. “We do games and play drums and do rhythms.”