The Lennox Speech and Debate team will be heading up to Watertown this Friday and Saturday to compete in the State debate tournament. This is after this past weekend’s competition in Brookings at the National Speech and Debate qualifier tournament. The two biggest tournaments of the year provide very different experiences for the students.
This past Friday and Saturday, 11 students traveled to Brookings to take part in the Northern qualifier. This tournament pits the students against some of the best in the state, on both the “A” and the “AA” level. The elimination style tournament continues until the top two competitors can be decided. Those that are in the top two will earn a chance to compete at the National tournament.
This year, Lennox had several students make it near the top. Santana Kitson and Portia Bird placed fifth with their duo and ended as the third alternate to nationals behind two Brookings’ duos that took first and second. Max Bultena debated six rounds in Lincoln Douglas debate to have a shot at Nationals. Unfortunately, he lost to a debater from Aberdeen High School and ended the tournament in third,, and the first alternate to the National tournament.
Several other students had some solid performances and included Santana Kitson in Original Oratory, Marcus Metivier in domestic extemp, Aidan Sanchez in international extemp, Max Bultena in international extemp, and Anna Calhoon in dramatic interp.
This upcoming weekend, students will be competing against the “A” students in events of public forum debate, Lincoln-Douglas debate, original oratory, domestic extemp, and international extemp. Last year the team had several strong showings and ended up second as a team. This year will also be competitive with last year’s champion, Spearfish, looking to be very strong again and several other schools like Milbank, Tea Area, Beresford, and Sioux Falls Christion bringing tough squads to the State meet.