Alumnus LJ Gomez ’17 spent the year competing on the Arizona State University speech team. LJ graduated last year from Valley Christian and was a co-salutatorian.
As a freshman at ASU, he had the opportunity to compete at the AFA National Tournament in Colorado against the best collegiate competitors in the country. LJ finished in the Top 75 in the nation in Impromptu, contributing points to ASU’s team score and helping the Sun Devil speech team to a 15th place finish.
LJ qualified for the national tournament by winning both the POI and Impromptu categories at the regional district tournament.
At Valley Christian, LJ was the Speech Team President and participated in both drama and speech. LJ helped this year’s speech team from time to time. He said, “I am ever thankful for the Valley speech coaches who invested time in me and introduced me to speech. I look forward to not only refining my own skills as a collegiate speech competitor, but also look forward to helping Valley students in the speech team to realize their potential, train them for high school competition, and to ultimately allow them to be good stewards of the voices and talents that God has given them.”