Baylee Settje Wins “Presidential March Madness”
Launch the media gallery 1 playerPresidential March Madness is an annual class competition that Mr. Jeff Bachman puts together for the senior government class at Leigh each year. Each student picks between 3 presidents that were decided for them by a spinning wheel.
There are three rounds for each head-to-head debate match up. The first round consists of a two-minute spiel about all the good things their president has done. The second round is a “dirt” round, where they have 1 minute and 30 seconds to give a spiel on all the bad things the other person’s president did. The last and final round is the rebuttal, which is if they need it, they get 2 minutes to write a rebuttal and say the good things about their president. They can also justify their president.
Mr. Bachman said, “This is one of my favorite classroom activities that we do all year long. The seniors did a great job of preparing and competing this year. There easily could have been 7 or 8 of them who won it.”
The final four students were Ella Urban with Franklin Roosevelt, Baylee Settje with Andrew Jackson, Izzy Hollatz with Barack Obama, and Elijah Melchor-Smith with Abraham Lincoln.
Lastly, the final two were Baylee Settje and Ella Urban. The three judges were Mr. Jeff Bachman, his student-teacher Mr. Andrew Erbst, and the “celebrity” judge Mr. Andrew Faltys.
After hearing the heated debate between Baylee and Ella, the judges conversed and decided that Baylee Settje would be the 2025 March Madness champion. Baylee won pride and a $20 gift certificate to Main Stop.
Winner of March Madness, Baylee Settje says, “I am honored to have won this competition and debated against fellow classmates. It was a fun experience getting to go up against my classmates head-to-head on who the better president is. It was also interesting to hear everything about each president and learn something new.”