A month ago, an 8th-grader from Alaska won the inaugural National Civics Bee aimed at cultivating the next generation of leaders through competition.
Winning the Alaska state civics bee, Emily Brubaker was able to participate in the national competition at the US Chamber of Commerce Foundation building in Washington on November 12th. Her victory was rewarded with a $100,000 scholarship for a school of her choice.
Brubaker was one of 28 contestants from around the country, but she had a secret weapon: a background in advocacy. Born with a congenital disorder called hypohidrotic ectodermal dysplasia which affects her hair, skin, and teeth, she has already been to Capitol Hill to advocate making insurance companies pay for her treatment.
The bill in question is called the Ensuring Lasting Smiles Act, which passed the House in 2022.
As a result of her advocacy, a friend encouraged her to apply for the Alaska state civics bee, and her parents helped her by creating civics flashcards and testing her after school.
“Sometimes when I was coming home after school, my mom would be like, ‘Emily time to study for civics,’ and I’d like, internally groan, and I’d be like, ‘Ugh, civics,’” she told Alaska Public Media.
Having won, the 14-year-old admits to seeing the value in that preparation, especially with the tough competition she faced from Michael O’Mara from Iowa.
The contest included team activities, a presentation, and a buzzer round, with scores across the three tallied. No one knew the scores during the competition, and Brubaker admitted she didn’t know where she was after the buzzer round when she and O’Mara finished at parity.
“They announced the third-place winner, Keith from New Mexico, and then the second-place winner, Michael from Iowa, and then they brought out the CEO of the Daniels Fund to announce the first-place winner,” she recounted to Alaska News Source. “When it was me, I actually started crying on camera.”
Streamers were shot out of cannons, and someone brought her an enormous cardboard check for $100,000 in the form of a 529 plan that would allow her to pay for virtually any school in the nation.
She wants to be a satellite programmer for NASA, and thinks MIT would be the best course of action for such a career.
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Brubaker says she will continue to advocate for the ELS Act, as it won’t be long before the family has to choose whether or not to perform the dental work needed for their daughter to have a functioning set of teeth onward and into the rest of her life.
If passed, insurance companies would not be able to deny covering a procedure stemming from a congenital anomaly like the one Brubaker has.
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“Once I started studying and applying for the civics bee, I realized that I’ve been doing civics my whole life by advocating for this condition, and I just hadn’t realized it,” she said. “It’s actually super easy to be involved in civics and not know about it, because basically, just by existing in this country, you’re performing civic duties and responsibilities, whether it’s advocating on Capitol Hill for a bill or whether it’s like going and voting.”
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce plans to continue boosting its competition, currently intending to have all 50 states represented in 2026 for the 250th anniversary of the United States.
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