While most students spent the first weekend of February at the annual Snowcoming dance, the Speech and Debate team travelled

to Jefferson City to participate in a competition held at Jefferson City Middle School. Some of the events that members were able to compete in for Debate were Congress, Public Forum and Lincoln-Douglas. For Speech, members were able to compete in Prose, Poetry, Duo Interpretation, Dramatic Interpretation and Humorous Interpretation.

“It was fun to get out of town to a new place and do what I love to do,” junior Rachel Rotter said.

To prepare for their individual events, members practiced after school and worked on their performance outside of practice. Speech and Debate members practice every Monday and Tuesday in the Learning Commons from after school until 4 p.m.

“By practicing, you get the time to work on pieces and debate cases,” sophomore Zoe Lawson said. “It also gives us a better chance at winning at competitions.”

The Speech and Debate team, overall, did well. Seniors Matt Schneider and Brittany Steck took second place in the Duo Interpretation category, while juniors Luke Guerdan and Lauren Hogan took third in the Public Forum category. In addition to these accomplishments, Caleb Black took second in Humorous Interpretation, and Mensur Koso and Som Singh took third in Lincoln-Douglas.

“It felt good to know that all of our hard work paid off,” Guerdan said.