21 students competed in the Public-forum and Lincoln-Douglas events at the past Speech and Debate tournament held on Saturday, Jan. 11. This tournament was only a debate competition because there was not enough room in the host school to handle the speech portion and all of its competitors.
The top six teams received medals and points toward the regional competition and so far, the Speech and Debate team is off to a great success.
The practices are held every Thursday in the SGA room and this year counselor Jim Carter and teacher Karen Baxter took over as coaches, from former coach Jennifer Fulton.
The Speech and Debate team gives up a couple of full Saturdays every school year to dress in business attire and go to host schools to compete in tournaments with other schools.
The tournament went very well with juniors Morgan Davis and Regan Redman placing 12th place out of 40 varsity teams. On the junior varsity team, sophomore Anna Miner and Bushra Hague also succeeded, receiving 25th place out of 50 teams.
Carter says he plans to continue coaching speech and debate in the years to come.
“Students should join speech and debate to see the value in learning to think on their feet and to present logical arguments on what they believe” said Carter.