Oakville Senior High School students Adam Ford and Geoff King recently led the way at the student congress event at the National Forensics League National tournament in Henderson, Nev.

Both students were elected by their peers to serve as presiding officer of a student congress chamber. Only three students from each chamber received this honor. As presiding officers, each student ran a five-hour session of the congress.

The student congress competition is an individual debate in a large group setting.

Legislative debaters research and write pieces of congressional legislation that they believe will better the society in which we live. At a tournament, debaters speak on the legislation while using proper parliamentary procedure.

Judges score each competitor based on argumentation ability, speaking technique, knowledge of parliamentary procedure, and overall participation.

Ford and King were two of the six students — out of 115 — who advanced to the national contest from district competition in the student congress event.

Next year, Ford will attend college in Illinois with a soccer scholarship and King will be co-president of the OHS Speech and Debate Team with fellow senior Casie Sambo.