The speech and debate team placed first overall in their debate tournament at Deer Creek Feb. 16. Team members placed high in every event, and upperclassmen and underclassmen both put on successful performances.

Despite placing high, seniors tended to undersell their performances. Zach James and Payton Woolard each remembered doing “okay,” compared to their performances in previous debate tournaments. Respectively, they placed second in Poetry and first in Lincoln-Douglass debate and Domestic Extemporaneous. The team seemed to rank their performance overall as average, but that was still enough to run away with sweepstakes. Senior Jake Lange had this to say about the team’s overall performance:

“I guess we did all right. I mean, we won, but none of our performances were particularly spectacular, I’d say,” Lange said.

Of course, the team’s actual performance led them to win sweepstakes, so it certainly was not as average as they appear to think it was, at least compared to the other competitors. Placements are listed below:

Congressional Debate: Jack Franklin – 3rd

Domestic Extemporaneous: Payton Woolard – 1st; Monica Money – 2nd

Dramatic Interperetation: Diamond Mayberry – 1st

Lincoln-Douglass Debate: Payton Woolard – 1st; Anna martin – 2nd; Clarence Long – 3rd

Monologue: Diamond Mayberry – 1st

Original Oratory: Alice Bennet – 2nd

Prose: Bryan McGaron – 3rd

Poetry: Monica Money -1st; Zach James – 2nd