Laurie Dawson, Founder & LD Coach

With over 30 years in sales, marketing, and contract negotiation, Laurie has been a student of communication throughout the entirety of her adult life. She has been a presenter, facilitator, corporate sales trainer and manager, representing her industry in multi-state, national, business and political settings. Her initial involvement in speech & debate began when her youngest decided to participate during high school, and she has been coaching/mentoring students ever since.

Laurie's approach as a coach is innovative and heavily focused on personal engagement, aiming far beyond the high school debate realm and into adulthood. Passionate about teaching students to think and reason for themselves, Laurie believes competitive debate catalyzes both intra- and interpersonal development. The skills Laurie refined in business and non-profit leadership are the same skills imparted to her Lincoln Douglas debaters:
- to assess, research, and organize large amounts of information
- to employ traditional logic when constructing and deconstructing arguments
- to reason and persuade whilst maintaining moral and ethical integrity
Laurie coaches toward the mastery of these foundational skills and then builds upon them - line up on line. Her modern approach to classroom learning has resulted in many, even first year debaters, becoming national qualifiers. Most recently, in response to Covid-19, Laurie collaborated with Isaiah McPeak to provide a highly successful virtual research and debate camp. 
 
Laurie has homeschooled two children K-12 and enjoys pottery painting, reading, and spending time with her family. While she has spent many years teaching and training adults in both secular and church settings, Laurie is most grateful for the opportunity to invest in the lives of young people. In addition to coaching debate, her involvement with students has included positions as youth and children’s choir director, fine arts adjudicator, girl’s ministry coordinator, resident choral camp director, small group and private tutor.