Mollie Martin Broussard Scholarship
Mollie Martin was the first Debate Coach at BHS when the school opened in 1955. By the time she retired in 1962 she had been awarded Coach of the Year and her teams had won National Sweepstakes Championships in 1958 and 1959 and in total won more sweepstake points at the National Speech Tournaments during her six-year tenure than any other school from the inception of the National Forensic League in 1932 through 1962.
Mollie founded and each year directed the Bellaire Forensic Tournament; the largest and most prestigious high school invitational Speech Tournament in the nation, and the only one to have a college division, with colleges as far away as Harvard and the University of Pennsylvania attending.
She was elected to the National Debate and Speech Association Hall of Fame, as have each of her four successors. She began, and her successor coaches and their students have continued, one of the finest Speech and Debate programs in the nation with the only Bellaire High School teams to win Statewide and National recognition for their accomplishments.