Speech team makes showing at nationals

It may have been a little different this year due to the pandemic, but once again, the Bobcat Speech and Debate Team made an excellent showing at the National Speech and Debate Tournament.

While they were supposed to be traveling to Albuquerque for this year’s tournament, COVID-19 got in the way and the entire tournament was held online.

Those doing individual speech events such as humor, drama or oratory had to pre-record their events and download them to the National’s site. Congress, debate and extemporaneous speaking were don live through Zoom.

Senior Breeze Petty competed for the second year in a row in Congress, moving her way through 250 competitors to make it to semi-finals. Although she was knocked out of competition before reaching finals, she still managed to rank 28th in the country.

Senior Hannah Hu, also competing for her second year, did not make the final cut either, but she placed in the middle of the pack of about 300.

Sophomore Jean-Luc Willson pulled double duty on his first ‘trip’ to Nationals, competing in both World Schools Debate and Extemporaneous Debate.

World Schools takes several top debaters from each district and they compete together as a team against other district teams. Willson had to practice with the rest of his team via Zoom as well as compete online. The World Schools team finished with a 3-3 record.

In extemporaneous debate, Willson received a topic about 30 minutes before the debate went live. His final results in extemp debate were a 1-3 record.

Both students and coaches found doing the tournament online to be very different from in person, however, they are now assured that tournaments can be held effectively online, which bodes well for the upcoming season.

While the Wyoming High School Activities Association is working diligently on how to do sports and activities this year with the pandemic in place, there has been some worry within the Wyoming speech and debate community how teams could continue to compete. A successful National tournament is a good sign that even though things may be a little different than in the past, tournaments can be held in an online format.