Laramie High School senior, Andrew Kern, took second place at the National Speech and Debate Tournament in the Poetry category.

It is the highest finish at nationals by an LHS student in the program’s history. The previous best was a 10th-place finish in the Lincoln Douglas Debate category by a student in 1995.

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The national competition was hosted out of Des Moines, Iowa, but was held virtually. Part of the tournament was live, while other parts were asynchronous.

Students qualify for the National Speech and Debate Tournament by qualifying from the District Tournament, which was held in March.

Kern earned a scholarship for his second-place finish and will be attending the University of Louisiana at Lafayette in the fall.

LOOK: Here are the 50 best beach towns in America

Every beach town has its share of pluses and minuses, which got us thinking about what makes a beach town the best one to live in. To find out, Stacker consulted data from WalletHub, released June 17, 2020, that compares U.S. beach towns. Ratings are based on six categories: affordability, weather, safety, economy, education and health, and quality of life. The cities ranged in population from 10,000 to 150,000, but they had to have at least one local beach listed on TripAdvisor. Read the full methodology here. From those rankings, we selected the top 50. Readers who live in California and Florida will be unsurprised to learn that many of towns featured here are in one of those two states.

Keep reading to see if your favorite beach town made the cut.

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