The debate team participated in a competition last weekend at Hays High School. Competitors were successful in their events and will be continuing on to district competitions in late March.

“We’re pretty new, so we’re just trying to build up our program,” debate teacher Jude John said. “Trying to get people learning what to do so that in future years we can really focus on being extra competitive.”

The recent UIL competition involved academic events along with speech and debate. The team participated in several different events, each with unique requirements and scoring. 

“Extemporaneous speaking is informative and persuasive,” John said. “There’s also prose, poetry and Lincoln-Douglas debate. Prose involves making a piece out of parts from a book, and poetry is the same thing but with poems.”

The team is currently fundraising online through Snap! in order to support future competitions and other events. 

“Every time we go to a tournament we have fees that we have to pay for getting judges and other general tournament fees,” debate president Nicolas Garza said. “We also have a banquet coming up at the end of the year, so [the funds] also help pay for that.”

As president of the team, Garza is looking toward the future of the team and working on events and curriculums for new participants. 

“My debate coach and I are making a curriculum for future students who want to do debate,” Garza said. “Because there are the different events, we’re working on a curriculum so they can get started easier. And that is going to be a lot of work.”

Sophomore Cara Morriss is hopeful for the next competition, with goals of improvement and higher scoring.

“Overall in debate, picking the prompts and stuff kinda gets your adrenaline going. It gives you a chance to break out of your shell,” Morriss said.