How Rhetorical Excellence Shapes Students for College, Career, and the Common Good | Aryanna Highfill and Kate Creecy

On this episode of Anchored, CLT’s Brand Marketing Manager Taryn Boyes is joined by Aryanna Highfill and Kate Creecy to discuss their experience participating in the National Homeschool Speech and Debate League, Stoa. They discuss the array of skills Stoa helped them develop, dive into how it shaped their high school experience, and share how it prepared them for their college years and beyond. They also discuss how to approach the competitive aspect of speech and debate.

Transcript

Taryn Boyes (00:01.179)
She'll she'll cut out the beginning if need be. Okay. I just want to make sure we're all here. Okay, I think we're good to go. Hi, Jillian, our podcast producer.

Taryn Boyes (00:17.605)
Welcome to the Anchored Podcast, the official podcast of the Classic Learning Test. I am Taryn Boyes, Brand and Marketing Manager at CLT. And today I am joined by Ariana Highfill and Kate Creasy. There is a very special something that the three of us share in common, which we will be discussing today on the podcast. But before we get into that, I am very excited to share a bit about each of our guests. Ariana Highfill is a junior at Union University.

studying public relations and international affairs. Growing up in a military family of nine, she has a passion for sharing people's stories, which has led her from competing in speech and debate in high school to running media at college for union student government, union ministries, and Birth Choice, a crisis pregnancy center. She also works with the Make-A-Wish Foundation, sharing her own story as a former Make-A-Wish child.

Kate Creasy holds undergraduate degrees from Angelo State University and a Juris Doctor from Regent University School of Law. Her background encompasses experience in government, public policy, television, radio, film, human rights initiatives, and nonprofit work. She currently clerks for the Chief Justice of the Florida Supreme Court. And when her clerkship finishes, she will transition to a litigation position with the Tennessee Attorney General's Office.

And of course, she is not speaking on behalf of either of those offices today. So welcome to both of you, Kate and Ariana. The special connection that I hinted at that we all share on the podcast today is our participation in the National Home School Speech and Debate League called SOA. And SOA for our guests that haven't heard of it before is an organization that has existed since 2009.

and it has been training homeschooled students to speak boldly and change the world for Christ. Each year, approximately 100 tournaments take place across the nation with thousands of students. There are 15 different types of speech and debate events, and it's a total blast as we all can attest. And I'm super excited for our guests to learn more about SOA today and the impact it's had on each and every one of us. And I know there are so many stories that we could tell.

Taryn Boyes (02:32.095)
this podcast could be hours and hours long. And unfortunately, we just don't have that amount of time, but excited to dig into all of our experiences that we have. So what I want to do is ask a question that we ask all of our guests on the Anchored Podcast. And that is your educational background. So we can start with Ariana, but if you can share about just what your childhood education was like, know homeschooling, obviously.

is part of that and then what brought you to Union.

Aryanna Highfill (03:04.581)
Of course. Yeah, so as you kind of foreshadowed already, I grew up in a military family, so staying in one school was really unrealistic for us. So we were pretty pure homeschooled. My mom just taught us for a while, until about middle school when I started taking online classes. So I did those live online classes through Veritas Press and the Potter School. So it was just two platforms that we used throughout all of my middle school and high school.

So I just stuck with those the whole time. When I got to mid high school, I started doing some dual enrollment through Potter School, which was really helpful down the road at Union. But then after just multiple applications to different colleges and lots of just different interviews and traveling around the country for that, I just kind of decided on Union.

Taryn Boyes (03:54.577)
is wonderful and what about you Kate?

Kate Creecy (03:57.772)
I think probably one of the questions you get asked the most as a former homeschooling student is, so why did your parents choose to homeschool you? And I can definitely say that for my parents, the answer was to give us something that they never had. My dad did not receive a great education growing up and they never finished college. And so my parents thought that for them, homeschooling was the way to give their kids an individualized education. So that meant that they just kind of tailored that education to what each kid needed.

for myself, did a lot of classes at home with my mom, and then I attended a university model school two different days a week to take specialized classes there, and then through some AP classes on top of that, some that my mom taught, some that other teachers taught me, and that was the path to college for me.

Taryn Boyes (04:46.505)
That's wonderful. It's fun because homeschooling has so many different forms, but from both of your stories, I picked up different things that were in my own homeschool education. So, Arianna, I know you mentioned Veritas Press Scholars Academy, and I took classes through them as well. That's an online homeschool program. then, Kate, you were talking about why your parents decided to homeschool, and it was sort of similar with my mom as well. She didn't have that education, and I remember she told us when we were younger.

My sister was in preschool at the time. So still not even in big kid school, you could say. And my mom just said when my sister would come home, she just felt this on her heart. Like this isn't right. Like she needs to be home with me and didn't really know anything about homeschooling at the time. It was kind of new or at least in her circles. So just follow that calling. But that's so wonderful. We, we share some things in common of the homeschooling can take so many different forms, but

I'm really excited to talk about our commonality of Stoa. obviously Stoa is about speech and debate. I talked about how there are different speech and debate events, 15 different types of events this year. I was looking online on Stoa's website. So it's kind of obvious, right? We learn how to speak and communicate well, but I think we can all attest there are a lot of other skills that we took away from Stoa, maybe ones that don't seem as obvious on the surface.

So I would love to hear from, from each of you, what would you say those skills were that you developed that you weren't really expecting to in Stowa?

Aryanna Highfill (06:21.755)
I know some of the skills that I really wasn't expecting had a lot more to do with my emotional intelligence on a just more practical application. I think when you're going to tournaments almost every weekend and you're competing with a lot of your peers, you are all engaging on a very high intellectual capacity for the most part. You're debating about pretty advanced concepts and stuff that you've just poured a lot of research and effort into. And it's so easy to forget.

while you're debating about transportation policy or international relations, it's just so easy to lose sight that we're also all at very developmental stage of our life. We're all learning. A lot of us are pretty inexperienced with just friendships and relationships in general. And so to come alongside a group of peers that are all striving after excellence and competing against one another, but also to be forming friendships

outside of the practice rooms or the competition rooms, like just in the hallways. For me, looking back, that was one of the most unexpected skills. Like know that's not why my parents put me in STOA, but there's the general stereotype that homeschoolers are very antisocial. to kind of be thrust into STOA for me, it really was my high school. Like I learned so much about how to do relationships well and how to do them very, very poorly.

and just how to compete well with other people and strive for excellence together, but also separately, but in a way that honors one another, which I think is just really hard to learn really anywhere else.

Taryn Boyes (07:59.389)
Yeah, and I think the age span too, Ariana, with there being kids as young as 12 years old all the way up to 18 when they graduate high school, you're also around a lot of different ages, which helps with what you were talking about, kind of that emotional intelligence and just being surrounded by a lot of different types of people. So I love that. What about you, Kate?

Kate Creecy (08:20.334)
I'd say there's a difference between communicating and communicating well. Pretty much everyone can communicate. When you log on to some social media page and you see people fighting, they're communicating. They're just not communicating well. And there are definitely a couple of ways that STOA helped me learn not just to speak and debate, but to communicate really well. So I'm an attorney now. Words and communications, that's all I do all day long. And I think...

Like you said, there are those soft skills that sometimes we forget. Those are just as important to high schoolers as some of the hard skills like how to present information. So one of those would be how to hold attention. Right. We live in a kind of a culture where

you can hold someone's attention for five, 10, 15 seconds at a time. But if you're trying to present life-changing information, right? If I'm trying to speak on behalf of a client or something like that, I have to hold a juror's attention for longer than five, 10 or 15 seconds. I have to make them feel like they're the only person in the room.

And like I'm talking to just them, I have to make a moment. And that's what I learned to do in STOA is how to walk into a room and read the room to see, what does this person need to hear from me? How can I communicate this message really effectively? And I think that also taught me how to meet someone where they are. There are 15 different ways to say anything. And STOA, think participating in STOA teaches students not to compromise on truth. You have to say what the truth is.

But the way that you present that to each person is going to differ depending on what that person really needs. So you don't just learn how to communicate information. You really learn how to communicate that information well.

Taryn Boyes (10:02.045)
Yeah. And you were kind of touching on reading the room, like how there are so many different people that you're talking to, not just in Stowa, but in life. And one thing that really drove that point home for me was the fact that Stowa brings in community judges. So what's really cool is when students are competing, there are judges, a lot of the time they're parent judges. volunteers of parents of other kids at the tournament. But then sometimes if there are people local to the tournament,

in the community, they will recruit those people to come judge. And what's so amazing and challenging, but amazing about those people is they oftentimes don't know anything about what we've been spending all year preparing to research. They have no familiarity with the different types of speech events. And sometimes that can be frustrating when you get your ballot after a round and you go, but they didn't know about that one piece of evidence or this context, but that's good because that's not how life works. People don't.

come prepared to a conversation you're going to have that you meet at the grocery store. You're always going to meet people from different walks of life. So yeah, I feel like that, that really speaks to what you were just talking about, Arianna, you were sharing a little bit about, friendships in Stoa and, share a little bit more about how with your family being military, how Stoa was able to kind of bring those friendships alongside you during all the change that was happening in your life.

Aryanna Highfill (11:26.737)
Yeah, of course. Whenever we were moving, the rate that we had it was every other year. So it was pretty frequently for me. And I was used to it. My mom had always done a really good job of teaching me how relationships can be temporary in life. And that's a really beautiful thing. And so I loved moving. I thought it was so exciting.

And I never really knew what I was missing when it came to just growing up around some of the same people and kind of just growing up with other people beyond my siblings. But when we joined STOA, my older brother and I joined when we moved to the DC area and my dad said that we were just going to do it. And so we didn't really have a choice. We're like, okay, we kind of hated it at first. Definitely did not want to be there. And the more that we were just meeting people and actually in the competition itself,

the more we were beginning to realize that these were friendships that would move around with us. Because then we moved, after my first year in SOA, we moved to Kansas from Washington, DC. So we were pretty distraught about that from like big city life, all these opportunities to the middle of nowhere. And it ended up being the best place I had ever lived and just my favorite experience. And a lot of that was because I was going to all of these tournaments and still seeing my friends.

And so it never really felt like moving really didn't seem as daunting or scary for almost any of my high school because I knew I would continuously see my friends at the same rate. And in that way, I feel like I did get in a very strange way that God just kind of organized everything to happen. I really did get that high school experience of just growing up with my friends. And even now people,

to this day go to school with at Union to explain it. I just tell people, I went to high school with them because it's too long to try and go through all of that that I just did. But it's a really beautiful thing. And it was such a comfort to me and my siblings to know that our friends were so much closer than we ever thought. And even if they lived halfway across the country, that we'd be able to continue to share something for years and years. And I think,

Aryanna Highfill (13:41.009)
This has proven to be true so far. And I hope it continues to that a lot of those friendships continue to this day despite the distance, which is just really, really amazing.

Taryn Boyes (13:49.661)
Yeah, yeah. What about you, Kate? What's been your experience?

Kate Creecy (13:54.07)
I definitely second that. I'm going on a decade out from high school, but I can tell you that I have a girls chat of six girls from STOA, six really strong, solid women who are very strong in their faith. They're really strong in what they believe. And they're going to be some great movers and shakers in the country. And we're from three different states. And we didn't even necessarily all

at the same time. So I would say that that might be a little bit different from from Ariana's experience. But we had this community, we had the shared bond, and it's just it's a source of community and strength for all of us as we're going about our careers in different parts of our life. We're constantly sharing purquests or even just things that we find funny about our day.

I can definitely agree that the community travels with you.

Taryn Boyes (14:55.711)
Yeah, and it's been the same in my experience as well. Working for CLT, I joke it connects me to all the things from my past because we partner with Veritas Press, they're a partner of ours, we partner with Stowa. I feel like all the things from my homeschool experience, Hillsdale College where I went to college accepts the CLT. So it's really just me trying to stay connected to all the things that I love the most. But I would love to hear from you both as well about...

the competitive side of Stoa. So obviously, Stoa is very competitive. You're competing against people you don't know, and you're also competing against your best friends, which can present its own challenges. But did you find at any point that the competition was becoming all consuming? How did you make sure that you still had a really healthy attitude toward that aspect of Stoa?

Aryanna Highfill (15:48.231)
definitely think that whenever I was competing in STOA, there was two different camps that a lot of us kind of separate ourselves in, which was more of the non-competitive track and the competitive track. That wasn't an official thing by any means, but a lot of us just kind of gauged it by who's going to an obsessive 12 plus tournaments and who's just going to compete occasionally. Because you do learn from both. You really do. And you get a lot of the benefits from both. I definitely was on the latter track.

I loved the competition. I wanted to do really well. And a lot of my friends did too, which is really what spurred me and motivated me to drive after that competition. And the point that you were talking about just now about kind of competing against even your best friends, I think that that grew my relationships more than anything else. And it's one of the things that looking back has taught me so much about

the benefits of conflict and being able to handle that well and just how it can really grow a relationship and refine it in ways that it wouldn't before. Because there would be some rounds where to my chagrin, I would get so lost in the competition. I can remember a specific round that was about Afghanistan and my dad was deployed at the time and I was so overly passionate about it and I remember leaving that round.

feeling just so disappointed in the round, in my opponents, in myself, in the judge. I was just disappointment all around. And it wasn't, I debated really, really well and I won the round, but it was such a loss for me that year. Just thinking back about how that competitiveness had really blinded me to the people around me. But then there's other times where I would debate, have some of the best debates and just really go at someone.

And then we would leave. parley partner and I always seemed to be paired up against each other whenever it came to Lincoln Douglas debates. And so we would always debate each other, but we would always end that round just laughing and cutting it up. And seeing that in Stoa, I just think is one of the most, it's the most honorable and rare things, I think, to see, especially leaving Stoa and seeing how people handle conflict and then respond when a conflict has happened. To be able to see people really, I mean, what sharpening

Aryanna Highfill (18:08.347)
really looks like when we talk about iron sharpening iron so much, but what it actually can look like and feel like in the grind of that sharpening, but then to leave knowing that you're better for it and loving the other person that much more and respecting them that much more is just, it's such an interesting way to look at competition and see it as an opportunity for growth and even for honoring one another, opposed to just cutting each other down for the sake of winning.

Taryn Boyes (18:32.317)
Yeah, absolutely. What about you, Kate? Anything to share on that front?

Kate Creecy (18:36.838)
Yeah, definitely. One of my favorite things about Stoa is that it is the only customizable sport that your high schooler can compete in. So when you sign up for a basketball team, so I played basketball for eight years, I thought I was going to college on a basketball scholarship until I found Stoa and the Lord rerouted my life to a way better career path. If you're in a place where your student

You know, you want to go to one or two tournaments and that's the level of competition that really works for your family, for your budget, for your homeschooling plan. Cause as a parent, you're in charge of your child's education. You get to pick what's best for your kid. And so maybe you decide we're going to two tournaments this year and that's what works for you and your family. And then maybe you have the kid who is the ultra, ultra competitive student who really wants to throw themselves into this activity, like the way they would some other kind of sport.

then you can totally do that. So you can fit STOA around what your family's time, budget, resource, wants, needs are. STOA is really customizable on that front. But I think your broader question was, what did I learn about the competition? Because I was a pretty competitive person in STOA. I would say I learned two different things. Number one, I learned to lose well. One thing that my coaches taught me over and over and over again that has proved to be

more useful than I can describe to you in a career path where I'm involved in government policy, the law, those sort of things. My coaches always said to me, if at the end of the day you walk into a round and you debate and you a great presentation and you lose, that's your fault. That means that you didn't communicate well enough. There's no need to be upset about that. Sometimes you're going to win and sometimes you're going to lose. But it's your job as the advocate.

to persuade the judge to listen to you, to outperform your competitor, and then to have the right attitude when you don't. And instead of saying, I got a terrible judge who voted against me. My coaches taught me, no, no, no, you say, you know what? I didn't present that information as well as I should have that round. Let's go back to the drawing board. Let's figure out how can I better present that information the next time I encounter a community judge with that particular background. So my coaches were teaching me to have character.

Kate Creecy (21:03.148)
instead of reaction. And that's one of the most important things you can teach a high schooler who has an underdeveloped teenage brain is to develop the emotional maturity not to react, to have character in those kind of moments. And then the second thing I would say, and the last thing, is that I learned to be a person who stands up for truth. There are some things we can totally compromise on. And that's what a great debate round shows you, is that you should reach some kind of middle ground.

On some topics where you can say, okay, I see that this issue is really important to you. This issue is important to me. How can we find a solution that works for both of us? And that's very real world. But there are a few topics that you absolutely cannot compromise on. And that's the way it really is in the real world. So if you want to build students who know how to be uncompromising when it actually counts, then I would say come learn how to do that in Stowa.

Taryn Boyes (21:56.317)
Yeah, it's funny that the last point that you brought up, Kate, really resonated with me because in a debate round, it can be tempting sometimes to kind of stretch the truth. If you really want to win, you're in that competitive round and you're like, you know, I think this is true. I'm going to say it as if it's true. Cause I think it's going to help me out. There's always that temptation. And I think back to this story. So this was when I was a younger debater, my sister and I were debate partners, team policy partners for the first couple of years, until she graduated.

And I would just kind of start talking 12, 13 year old me and just kind of forget where my mouth was going. Keep talking, keep talking. So I remember for some reason we were debating something about highways. Like who was going to fund something on a highway? think this team wanted to get rid of public roads and privatize everything. And I remember seeing when you're driving on the highway, they'll have those signs that are, you know, sponsored by the

I don't know, the local Lions club or something like that. Well, I thought that meant that the people owned that part of the highway. And I thought to myself, well, I'm not sure. I don't know for sure, but I'm pretty sure. And I just remember defending it so hard in that, in that round. And at the end of my end of the round, my sister was just telling me you shouldn't have done that. You shouldn't have done that. And I think that's a good lesson for me looking back because I was still learning. was young, but I, at the time I wanted to win so badly that

I was loosening my grip on making sure that what I was saying was true. And so your point, of learning to stand up for truth, you do learn that lesson and it's hard. There can be that tension between, I really want to win this debate round. And if I say this thing that I'll probably win the debate round. But I think for the most part, we can all attest, know, most of the students that graduate from Stowa do learn that lesson of it is the truth that matters at the end of the day, not winning the debate round as good as it feels to win.

Kate Creecy (23:49.71)
And what a great opportunity for coaches to step in because when you put 12 and 13 year olds in a highly competitive environment, they're going to make a mistake and they're going to make a bad argument from time to time. And that's an opportunity for the coach and the parents to take that authority role and to come in and to say, let's learn how to lose well. Let's learn how not to try to just make a point for the sake of winning, but to try to communicate well, make excellent arguments and end.

Taryn Boyes (24:00.447)
Mm-hmm.

Kate Creecy (24:19.426)
communicate things that are actually true.

Taryn Boyes (24:21.563)
Absolutely. Now I know both of you are either in college, I know Ariana, you're still at Union. Of course, Kate, you've graduated from your undergrad. I'm wondering if in your college experience, maybe there is a specific speech event, a type of event that you competed in, or maybe a debate event where that has applied to something you were learning in college or maybe an experience you went through. Something I'll share that...

comes to mind is apologetics. Competing in apologetics in Stoa gave me an amazing foundation for what ended up being my college major, which was philosophy and religion. And I took an Old Testament class where we had to read the entire Old Testament. It was nitty gritty. We were underlining, outlining. We really had to know it back and forth. And because of

My experience in Stowa with apologetics where we were really studying scripture, answering hard questions, I wasn't as intimidated because these were questions and topics I had already researched before. So I'd love to hear if there's anything for either of you that stands out.

Aryanna Highfill (25:29.307)
I definitely think a lot of them, I can just see so many applications, but by far the one that was the most influential, at least in the college setting, has been Mars Hill. And the whole point in Mars Hill of taking something usually more secular or at least something more prevalent in our culture today and being able to draw biblical truths out of that in a way that's conversational and not domineering, but does speak truth and shows that there is just crackles of redemption and hope.

even in the language that our society speaks. And being able to, I guess, be in the world, but not of the world, it has kind of been the thesis of Mars Hill throughout my high school when I was competing in it. And I cannot even begin to tell you how much that has impacted my college experience. Just having practiced over and over, even sometimes just from habit.

of watching something, of hearing music, of listening to a speaker in chapel, of just being very Berean about whatever I'm listening to and just constantly wondering, how could I draw the gospel out from this? Or even better, what seeds of the gospel are already here that the Lord has just graciously already put there? And how can I go about drawing that out in a way that doesn't repel people but draws them closer? And it goes back to something that, Kate, you were talking about earlier about the difference between

how you're saying things and how you can say things so many different ways. And we are told to speak truth with love. And I think Mars Hill just marries those two together so well in a way where you can be interacting with a generation that is young, away from authority, usually for the first time. We look to our culture today and see so many young Christians leaving the church as soon as they go to college.

And that's heartbreaking, but being able to reach them where they're at and even speak their language to an extent, but not in a way that conforms to who they are, but that points to Christ is such a powerful thing. So I definitely think Mars Hill has to be the one that I just see so often I call it.

Taryn Boyes (27:40.775)
It's funny, Ariana, because in the best way, Mars Hill ruins watching any movie or listening to any song or seeing any billboard because it ruins it in the best way. And I'm using that word purposely because you'll never be able to just take something at surface level again, which is good. It really teaches you to think, huh, I wonder why they chose that lyric in that song. What are they trying to communicate? What is the theme here? What's the underlying message? So you're totally right about that. I definitely have had that experience too.

What about you, Kate? Is there an event that stands out to you in your college experience?

Kate Creecy (28:14.862)
two different events, would say one prepped me on the way to college and one prepped me right on the doorstep of college. So as I was preparing for college, I took some AP tests and I have said over and over again, I will die on this hill, that doing parliamentary debate prepared me for AP testing maybe better than the AP testing books prepared me. And I don't mean, obviously the AP testing books have content.

that debate doesn't have, I stylistically. So parliamentary debate is kind of current events debate. It's a fast paced environment. Every single debate round for the entire year, you will debate on a different topic and you get somewhere around 20 or 30 minutes to prepare to have an entire debate round on a new topic. And having to do that drill over and over and over again, I'm seeing a topic, correctly analyzing both sides of the issue and preparing a coherent

presentation of the side of the issue that had been assigned in that debate round. Practicing those skills over and over again in pearly debate prepped me for when I would sit down on the AP exam, I would open up to a brand new essay and it would say, okay, you have 20 minutes to write an entire essay about this topic, go. Well, that's great. I'm used to 20 or 30 minutes of prep time. So definitely pearly helped me succeed on the way to college, but on the doorstep of college, I love this story.

So for my family, college was not an option financially. If I didn't get scholarships, it wasn't gonna happen. And so I was sitting in a scholarship interview at a college I really wanted to go to, and it was just little me, little high school Kate, with a board of professors and people at the university, and very intimidating. And they started asking me really personal questions about homeschooling. And they said to me,

Do know why your parents chose to homeschool you? And do you think that you'll be able to handle this kind of environment, this kind of academic environment that we have here? I didn't miss a beat. I could answer them quickly, truthfully, kindly. And that was because I had done persuasive speaking and also extemporaneous speaking. Extemporaneous speaking is current event speaking. It's another one of those where you get handed a topic, you have a very short period of time to analyze.

Kate Creecy (30:39.448)
How can I address this problem in a way that my audience will understand what I'm trying to communicate and then stand up and give that response? And because I had practiced those skills over and over and over again in high school, I could confidently talk to a panel of adults about some of the most personal parts of my life, why I was homeschooled, why that was a great option for my family, and why I was prepared for college.

Taryn Boyes (31:02.867)
That is so amazing. Did you end up going to that college getting the scholarship? That's wonderful. I love that story. Yeah. And, and I'm sure, you know, going into that interview, there's still going to be a healthy amount of nerves, right? It's not like we learn how to communicate well and then we're never nervous again, or we always know exactly what to say, but it gives you the confidence to be able to articulate your thoughts and,

Kate Creecy (31:06.388)
I did. I did.

Kate Creecy (31:18.421)
yeah.

Taryn Boyes (31:31.443)
Like you said, just speak truthfully with boldness. think that's really important. That's great. It's funny when you brought up extemporaneous speaking, that's another event that I know Kate, competed in Ariana. Did you compete in extemp? You did? Okay, great. So all three of us did. So, in that event, you're given current events topics and I can still remember, you know, when things come up in the news, I'll think,

I gave an extemporaneous speech on that my senior year at nationals about, I think it was the Venezuelan president and he appeared in the news recently, Nicolas Maduro, I think is his name. And my husband was talking to me about it and go, yeah, I know him. I had this question about inflation in my senior year finals round of extemp. And so it's fun, you're able to pick up on all these things that you probably wouldn't be.

keeping the pulse on if it weren't for those current events questions that you get. Another fun example of just how SOA has related to my life even now is being aware politically. So when I was in my 2013 to 2014 season, so I think I must've been 13 or 14 years old at the time, we were debating the teen policy resolution of Marine Natural Resource Policy. And one of the really infamous cases that people were running were about

removing the protections for the Delta smelt fish in the Northern and Central California area so that farmers could have more water. Well, that came up in the recent election cycle. That was one of the talking points that President Trump was bringing up. It was just so satisfying to think, I know about this. I've researched this and I can keep up with the conversations on this. So I'm sure you all have had similar experiences too, but I'd love to know now.

looking ahead. So Kate, obviously you've graduated from your undergrad. You are an attorney, which is so amazing. Congratulations. And then Ariana, I know you're looking forward to graduation, but would love to hear as it pertains to your careers and what you want to do post college in your future, how you think STOA weaves into that.

Aryanna Highfill (33:48.357)
I think that first, just on a very surface level, having that ability to go in front of people and speak was something that I took for granted so often. My dad is an attorney in the military and we always grew up in my house debating and we were pretty confident independent people. And Stoa, we joke that my parents put us in Stoa to try and get us to learn when to not talk.

more than to talk in front of people. And so to come to college and kind of begin to realize whether through just classroom presentations and then even going out and just giving speeches for different organizations that it's not something that a lot of people feel equipped to do is just something that on a very simple level, I know I've taken for granted so often. it's just really, it's just really,

Taryn Boyes (34:18.854)
Thanks.

Aryanna Highfill (34:44.573)
It just makes me feel really grateful to just reflect back and know that my career has been set up in a way where I actually have the confidence to go in front of people and speak boldly what I actually believe. So that's just the most foundational stepping stone. But deeper than that, I've always felt like, know, reference like Proverbs 31, but kind of the first portion of Proverbs 31, it talks about a righteous person who

stands up for the mute and speaks for those who don't have a voice and seeks justice for those who don't have justice. And to me, that has just been really the undertones of so many of the different passions that I want to go out and speak on. Because whether I'm doing it publicly or not, doing public relations at Union and just having practiced so many times, speaking on so many different topics in Stoa really

has just empowered me to want to actually speak up for people who can't. And to take that ability, that confidence, to go out and speak for those who normally wouldn't have a voice. And Stoa actually was one of the birthplaces for so many of those passions that I didn't even know I had, where I was learning about these things and I was hearing about them from my own life.

But then my research skills from STOA and just even running cases and giving speeches about the things I cared about in real time reminded me, I know my senior year, I gave an original oratory on human trafficking. And that was something that in my own life I had already been deeply passionate about. But to be able to transfer that passion into something I could tangibly give to an audience and even inspire as an audience, it was such a vivid,

reminder to me that whole year that leaving, know, graduating high school then, right after that nationals, and then going to college and then pretty soon, you know, leaving here, that passion can go so much further if you speak it with truth and with grace. And you can make it really strategic and you really can reach people and inspire people with what you say. And you can draw attention to people who otherwise wouldn't have any.

Taryn Boyes (37:05.502)
yeah, that's lovely. Thank you for sharing. Kate, what about you?

Kate Creecy (37:11.512)
Great question. I'm sure we could probably answer 10 or 15 different ways that STOA has really helped us on our career path. I can tell you I certainly wouldn't be doing what I ended up doing if not for STOA. STOA is really where I fell in love with communicating well, where I really understood that ideas have consequences. There's what I really love that goes, ideas have consequences, but people change the world.

And the idea is that when you equip someone with information, information in and of itself, you know, it's just something that sits there. It's just information. But when you give that information to someone who can communicate it well and in the correct way, you can actually make a difference. And so I think for me, one of the, I remember being a little kid and thinking, I don't care what job I have. I just want to do something that matters. And I think,

Stoa equipped me to be a person who can do something that matters. That doesn't mean that everybody needs to be a lawyer. For sure not. You can do something that matters in any career field. It's whatever career field you are supposed to do. You can do something that matters. But it's worth putting in the time and the effort to develop the skills to do things well. There's not virtue in mediocrity. There's virtue in excellence. And that's what Stoa taught me, is that learning even as

young as 12 years old, that's the earliest age you can compete in STOA, all the way up until you're 18 years old and you're a senior in high school. Learning to dedicate yourself to the art of persuasion, of understanding current events, of being able to analyze information quickly, of being able to talk to adults, to make eye contact with adults, to think of a response on your feet. These are skills that take a little 12 or 13 year old teenager with an underdeveloped brain.

and help mold them into a person of excellence in whatever they're going to be. If it's going to be, you know, a STEM field or if it's going to be more of a kind of a sociology sort of field or something totally different, if they're going to be a hairdresser or a bricklayer or whatever, you want your child to be excellent. And I guess I just can't stress enough that STOA helps young kids who become young adults in learning how to

Kate Creecy (39:36.366)
pursue excellence faithfully and then to try to reach out to other people to communicate whatever that truth is.

Taryn Boyes (39:43.965)
Yeah, absolutely. Something that you made me think about too is especially

Now, in this political landscape, I hear people saying, you know, it's never been this divisive before, or the world has never been this chaotic before. And it can become easy to believe that. But when you are a student of history or a student of just researching many, many topics and having to learn all about the world and really wrestling with hard questions as we do in speech and debate, it gives you a bird's eye perspective.

where you are kind of able to stand outside all of that to kind of take a step back and say, okay, you know what? There's a lot of information that I can consume on the internet, but I can research things thoughtfully. I can learn to think through information critically. And then at the end of the day, I can realize that there is nothing new under the sun and...

I'm able to have peace about all these things. Cause again, I'm just able to think critically through problems that are

As old as the beginning of the world there there really is no new problem so I think that's always been a comfort to me especially because My my career you could say has has changed a little bit I went from working full-time at CLT to working part-time after I welcomed my daughter And I know eventually when I have more kids. I'm so excited to be a full-time mom a full-time homeschool mom so My my life is going to look very different in that sense. I'm not gonna be a

Taryn Boyes (41:19.263)
applying the skills I learned from Stoa as much in the public world, you could say. But I am going to be able to pass on those lessons to my children and how they can face the world with confidence and trust in the Lord, knowing that he is totally in control. So that's so wonderful. You two ladies are just such a joy. And I would love to hear just stories and stories I'm sure you all have about Stoa.

and what you've shared has just been amazing. to wrap up the podcast, I want to ask both of you one last question. And we do like to ask our Anchored Podcast guests this question. So is there a book you can think of that has been particularly formative to you as a person? I know that there are probably a million books that you can think of. So

Don't worry about the superlative of that question. If you can't think of the book, think of a book that's been particularly impactful for you. I would certainly love to hear.

Aryanna Highfill (42:25.467)
The first book that comes to my mind is The Hiding Place by Cory Tan Boom. And I read that my first year of STOA actually, and that was my first platform speech was an expository speech on Cory Tan Boom and her book The Hiding Place. And just it's one of those books that I feel like throughout the years has continued to mold me. And every time I go back to it, I learned something new from it. And

I love history so much and that definitely plays a part in it. But being able to look back in history and just see how faithful God is to preserve his people. And then also just the literary genius of someone who's able to recount such horrific memories in such a beautiful and inspirational way is so special. I just think it's a timeless piece. I go back to it and there's just, it's just always oozing with so much wisdom.

And I'd definitely probably say that's the book that's formed me the most as a person of just what it means to, in a world as dark as ours can get, hide in the Lord and take comfort in that. And even to find strength in fight when you know that you're really not, you're not the main character because the Lord is our mighty warrior and he's the hiding place for us, which is a lesson that will never grow old in this world.

Taryn Boyes (43:50.574)
Thank you, Ariana. So well said. Love that book. I haven't read that one in a while. So I'll have to pick that up again. What about you, Kate?

Kate Creecy (43:58.222)
probably two different books. One is called Evidence Not Seen by Darlene DeBler-Rose. I would highly, highly recommend that any young woman read this book. I think, I don't want to spoil it too much, but it's an autobiography and it's a story of a woman who, a true story, found herself

in a very difficult situation on the mission field, you might say that she's sort of the female version of Nate Saint or Jim Elliot, except that she survived what happened to her. But evidence not seen, absolutely gotta read that one. And then it's hard to not like the Lion Witch in the Wardrobe.

I mean, that's probably way too overused, but I don't think you can ever be too old for an allegory that beautifully written.

Taryn Boyes (45:01.513)
Well, they're called the classics for a reason. So not overused at all, just widely appreciated for a reason. I love that. Well, Ariana and Kate, it has been a pleasure speaking with both of you today, hearing your stories. For our guests that want to learn more about Stowa, you can head to stoausa.org and learn more. Tell your friends, tell your family, and it will be, I guarantee, one of the best experiences you or your child

can ever have, and all of us can attest to that. So thank you so much, Ariana and Kate. It was so lovely speaking with you both.

Kate Creecy (45:36.92)
Thanks for having us.

Aryanna Highfill (45:37.949)
Thanks for having us.