News Brief: Debate Update, Sept. 28

EMPORIA:
-Liam Murphy and Jack Mitchell placed 1st in the Open Division out of 30 teams. Murphy/Mitchell went 8-0, finishing prelims as the top seed and winning all of their “out-rounds.”

-Liam Murphy- 5th place speaker out of 60 debaters in the open division.

VALLEY:
-Chris Carey and Michael Hill advanced to double octo-finals at the Mid America Cup- Valley High School tournament in Des Moines, IA. 93 teams competed in this tournament and the top 32 advanced to double octo-finals.

OLATHE SOUTH:
-Seth Myers and Max Kurlbaum advanced to semi-finals in the JV division and placed 3rd.
-Dhruba Biswas and Dara O’Connor went 4-1 in the novice division and placed 3rd.
-Hannah Wallace / Sarah Hellman went 3-2 in the novice division
-Chris Denisten / Jon Mytinger went 3-2 in the novice division
-Cameron Edwards / Nels Carlson went 3-2 in the novice division.

SME NOVICE TOURNAMENT:
-Chris Heady and Michael Hart went 5-0
-Taylor Thompson and Sarah Colbourn went 4-1
-Garrett Raible and Kyle Winston went 3-2
-Alexandra Felman and Sasha Neihorster-Cook went 3-2
-Zach Pearson and Jordan Mason went 3-2
-Luke Haverty and Carlos Oliva went 3-2
-Collin Jones and Carter Ascher went 3-2

NFL NEWS:
National Ranking: Shawnee Mission East HS has been recognized as one of the nation’s top schools in speech and debate activities by the National Forensic League (NFL). SME ranks 28th out of over 3000 schools nationwide based on student participation and excellence in speech and debate activities. This is the top 1 % of all NFL chapters. Recipient schools are published in Rostrum, the national magazine of high school speech and online at www.nflonline.org, the website of the National Forensic League.

Because our chapter earned 400 degrees or more last year, we have qualified for NFL’s elite Societe’ de 400. This award is important because it demonstrates our program’s commitment to teaching essential life skills- communication, research, listening, writing, and organization – to a large number of students. Our chapter strength and national ranking represents strength in numbers and competitive success. Students earn NFL points every time they compete in debate or forensics (the better they perform, the more points they receive).

NFL is the nation’s oldest and largest speech and debate honor society. Its mission is to promote secondary school speech and debate activities and interscholastic competition as a means to develop a student’s lifelong skills and values, as well as the public’s awareness of the value of speech, debate, and communication education. To date, over 1.3 million alumni have found their voice in the National Forensic League.