100. Winning Arguments, Building Bonds: Affton Speech & Debate

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Welcome to Afton Unplugged, a podcast by the Afton School District that highlights
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the people and stories that make the district great.
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I'm your host, Superintendent Travis Brock, and in the Afton School District,
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education is the most important thing we do.
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Welcome to this episode of the Afton Unplugged podcast.
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And today we're highlighting the Afton High School speech and debate team.
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We've got the two sponsors, as well as some students here at Afton High School.
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On this podcast, we like to get to know the people and stories that make the
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district great. So let's go ahead and start with introductions.
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Hi, I'm Ms. Rice. Where do you work at? I work at Rogers Middle School.
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But you help with this team? Yes, and then I coach at the high School, speech and debate.
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All right. What do you do at Rogers, and how long have you been with the district?
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I am the art teacher for sixth or eighth grade. I've been there for three years
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now. All right. Well, thanks for joining us. How about you?
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I'm Mrs. Bea. I teach Spanish at Afton High School. It's my second year here, but my 20th as a teacher.
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Great. We'll start with our students. Maybe tell us first name,
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grade, anything else you're involved with beyond speech and debate. My name is Leah.
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I'm a junior, and I like to do things involving art, and I'm currently in choir.
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I'm Logan. I'm a freshman. I love doing hockey and drawing, writing poems. Fun stuff.
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I'm Jackie. I'm a freshman, and I'm also part of HOSA, and I do dance.
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I'm Rebecca. I'm a sophomore. I do the Student Climate and Cultural Improvement Panel and Theater.
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I'm Jade. I'm also a sophomore, and I'm involved in Choir, Theater,
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and Student Climate and Cultural Improvement Panel.
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All right. Well, thanks for those introductions. We're going to hear a little bit more
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specifically from each one of you about the things
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that you're specifically involved with with the speech and debate
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team but before we do that let's hear from our
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sponsors tell our listeners just a little bit about speech
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and debate team what do you think would be good for them to know before they
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hear from our students well i did speech in high school all four years so i
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wanted to like give my kids you know these are my kids um the experience of
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you know speech and debate and see how it goes and just have them have the family
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that i had so that's kind of where it started for.
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What other logistics do you think our listeners might benefit from?
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I think a lot of people don't fully understand what speech and debate is.
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That the debate side of it is probably what people are most familiar with,
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and that is two teams debating back and forth on a predetermined topic that
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is chosen by our national organization.
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But it's very, there's a specific format that they have to follow.
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It's not just an endless debate until somebody is declared the winner.
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The other side I think people are less familiar with, the speech side,
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which I try to refer to as competitive acting to give people a broader picture
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that it's not an argument back and forth.
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You can present anything from poetry to a humorous interpretation or humorous interpretive piece.
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There's prose reading, but it's much longer than what you might see in Poetry Out Loud, for example.
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And so the kids work really hard to memorize.
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They have to introduce their piece that has a central theme where you're hopefully
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sharing a moral or something you want your audience to learn.
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So, yeah, I think that's a part people are less familiar with.
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All right. That's perfect. That's what I was hoping for to give folks a little
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bit of background. And now let's pivot into hearing from some of our students.
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Maybe remind people who you are again. So name and then specifically how what
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do you participate in? And maybe if you've had a competition recently, how did that go?
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How did you do? Or what were your takeaways from that competition? So we'll start with you.
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I'm Leah. I do poetry. And really,
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the thing that I enjoy most about doing the competitions is being able to see
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how different people express themselves and what pieces they choose and how
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they present those pieces.
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In addition to participating in yourself, do you get to...
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Who else is at the competitions? You get to hear what they're doing?
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Yeah. Okay, and that's enjoyable for you? I thought you.
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So yeah, I'm Logan. I'm part of a debate team alongside with my partner,
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Lindsay, who's not here.
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And we at the Most Recent Tournament placed third in our category of public forum debate,
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which is kind of, they give us a topic every other month, and we have to research
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it, both sides of it, and figure out, you know,
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right before the rounds, you know, what side we're debating and go into that.
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So, you know, you really have to have a good understanding from both sides of
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the argument, you know, and know what you need to do.
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Okay. What was the topic? It was about if the federal government should require
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tech companies to provide lawful access to encrypted data.
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So, you know, very, very exciting stuff.
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It's just a little heavy. Yeah. Debate is one of those things where it's a lot
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more fun once it's getting going. It doesn't always sound as fun as it can be.
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We'll take your word for now. All right. Thanks for sharing that with us. How about you?
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I'm Jackie, and I'm on the speech side of speech and debate, and I do prose.
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And last, the previous tournament we had, I placed second.
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And my piece is The Lovely Bones.
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Yeah. All right. Tell us a little bit about that. What do you think?
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If people aren't familiar with it, what would you want them to know about it?
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For prose you get a binder
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with it and you have to act it's not it's a
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little less acting than for example di which
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you don't have a script and it's 10 minutes for
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prose it's an eight minute long performance and yeah you just try to get your
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message across like a moral at the end of it towards the audience and the judges
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and everyone how about you i'm rebecca i also do the public forum side of debate
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with my partner, James McCann.
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In our most recent tournament at Webster University, we placed first in our category.
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And what Logan said is pretty much what public forum is.
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It's a lot of research and writing, a lot of essay stuff.
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And when I presented that to the middle schoolers, they weren't a big fan of that.
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But I think that once Once you actually understand what you're doing,
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it's a lot of fun to research and like work things out with your partner and
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find out what you want to do.
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It has been exciting watching debate because we've never coached debate.
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And so I feel like we jumped headfirst into the deep end of the pool.
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I feel like I headfirst you guys in. And so, but it's been really fun watching
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how they have put it together and helped each other, learned it alongside with us.
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They can probably talk to anybody now about the two topics that they've had so far this year.
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So it's been the amount of time it takes to research that and put together your
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opening speech, how you're going to handle the rebuttal, because you have to
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prepare that as your opponent is speaking.
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So a lot of this happens in real time. You can only prepare about half of what
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you're actually going to say before the round starts. And so it takes lots of focus.
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You have to have that information in your brain so you can pull it up to put
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it into your rebuttals to convince the judge to vote for your side.
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So I've just been impressed with how they've had to learn it with our minimum knowledge.
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We're learning, too. We're learning. We're figuring it out. But they've done
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a great job guiding themselves, too. So it's really impressive.
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Thanks for sharing that. How about you? I'm Jade. I'm involved in the speech
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side of speech and debate. I've done the poetry and prose section and DI.
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I'm going to continue with dramatic interpretation.
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My piece, along with all of the other ones, for some reason,
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was about sister's death, which is ironic because I'm an only child.
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It makes me cry every time. It's so sad. And really to prepare for it,
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you kind of just go over it a thousand times again and again,
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finding little things to tweak.
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And it's really just dedication with it. And in both my first and second tournament,
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I placed second tournament.
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And I think my favorite thing about the tournaments is having to be so on the
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spot with it because of how busy I am.
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And also, Leah, like you said, seeing how other people interpret their own pieces
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and the narrative they want to convey.
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All right. Well, thanks for sharing a little bit about specifics on what you're
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involved with and how you did with the most recent competition.
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Some of you started to mention this.
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I was curious, and sponsors mentioned this as well.
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What is it that you do to prepare for the competitions or
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what is it that you do when you're not competing and you're maybe practicing
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talk a little bit more about that what else would folks add to that piece of
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the puzzle okay for debate especially it is a lot of you know looking at different
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like scholarly sources and seeing you know what resources you can find different like.
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Vague statistics that could you know help and it's just you want to write a
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lot of research papers and stuff.
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I think for my first tournament, especially I had wrote like five or six different
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research papers on the topic, just exploring both sides of the argument.
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And it's just important to have that, those statistics memorized because you
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could get questioned on the spot.
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You could, you know, have to quickly change something, pivot.
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So just having such a broad knowledge of the topic and just like hammering those
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facts is really rereading everything for like 10 times, you know,
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So that's what's really important for debate.
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Anybody else want to talk about what they do to prepare outside the competitions?
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I know we, they depend on each other a lot for feedback and improvement.
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So, for example, I might send Leia and Jackie next door to the hallway.
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Okay, watch each other, give each other feedback. What can they incorporate next?
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Sometimes they'll sit with Ms. Rice and we'll make a whole list of things to
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just sort of switch next time.
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It's a little bit unique well i should
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i don't know if it's unique per se but there's always something that can
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be improved you know when you watch a performance you
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can always find something so i think you have
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to have a little bit of thick skin too to to take
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that kind of feedback all the time yeah and
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it's also not like two separate things you know like debate helps
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speech a lot speech helps debate a lot it's not like i feel
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like some people would also expect them to be like two separate things like I help
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I've helped you know Jade is like rehearsed a
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piece to me a lot and I've gone to some of
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the speeches about you know some of the stuff I've wrote you
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know for my debate just to see if it makes sense like someone
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with no knowledge of the topic did I write it in a way that makes sense you
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know and so having this relationship between the two where while we're not working
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together in an actual tournament to have that connection at the school when
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it comes to making the work has been so helpful and we've all gotten really close.
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I agree with that so much because although debate and speech can be so separate things,
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I feel like what speech can bring to debate is the more emotional convincing
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the judge with impact and then debate can help speech out with being like,
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does this make sense? Is it logical? goal.
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And then there's something I was going to say, I don't remember.
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Oh, hey, wait, I'll come back.
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Anything else on kind of the practice or when you're not competing aspect,
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anything else anyone wants to add?
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I feel like it's a lot of, like, I know Logan said that there's like a lot of
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research papers involved.
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My partner and I are a little less organized, I guess I'd say.
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We have, we spend a lot of our time going through like documents,
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citing evidence. And then once we're done with that, what we like to do is we
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like to take our evidence and then we like to try and argue it.
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We like to take it from the other point so we can see how someone's going to
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argue against us, how we can repute their arguments, and then vice versa if
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somebody else presents the same piece of data.
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And then for all of our pieces, time is a very important thing.
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We always try and keep things within a specific time limit. So we time each
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other a lot. That's honestly like half of our meetings are just tied to each other. Yeah.
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Sorry. I remember the thing I was going to say with DI or acting,
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speech in general, to tell if it's good acting, you just have to tell if it
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feels real, if it feels like life.
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And when you're having to gauge your own self, so often it can get very muddy
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and definitely having other people that are in different sections or even in
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a complete opposite side of speech and debate.
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Definitely, like, bring some reality to it. Right.
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Let's start or let's talk a little
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bit about why you even decided to be involved with speech and debate.
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What comes to mind when, regardless of what your specific items are that you're
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working on, why did you come here to be involved with this? Who wants to start?
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Jay, do you want to go first? I can't.
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Because everything I'm in is a performance art, choir, theater.
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For the fall plays, I'm in the back doing costumes, but the musicals, right on stage.
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Oh, yeah. That's my jam. You're good at it, too.
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Thank you. I love the performance arts. I want to go into the performance arts.
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I am a very anxious person, so it helps me out quite a bit.
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She's going to sing in her next piece. Wrong.
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Loud, incorrect buzzer. there
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was a lot of screaming a lot of she just doesn't
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know it yet we'll get her there we'll get
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her there so my my
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mom and my stepdad were both very active in their speech and debate teams in
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high school and i was kind of told the second they found out that we had a speech
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and debate team that i was going to do it i've been doing this since freshman
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year we didn't compete last year But so that was definitely something that I was told to do.
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But I also realized, like, I like to argue.
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I like to just like I've always kind of like debated with people.
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But now that I have like a structure and outlet to do it, it's really nice,
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which is why I continued to do it throughout this year. The reason I joined
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Speech and Debate was because last year, my eighth grade year, my art teacher, Ms.
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Rice, kept bringing it up and she kind of told me what it was about and it actually
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sounded very interesting and I thought it would also help me with my dance because
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it would help me get over my fear of performing and like in front of a big audience and just...
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And I actually really like it now. It's one of my favorite things.
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Yeah. In the same vein as Jackie, when I was in eighth grade,
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Ms. Rice had came in during one of my presentations for a class.
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And she came up to me afterwards and was like, hey, you'd be really good at speech and everything.
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You know, why don't you look into it when you get to high school?
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And then this year, originally I was like, no way I'm doing that.
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You know, I'll say, okay, out of kindness, I'll say, okay.
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But then, you know, I decided to get into it. And I've absolutely loved it.
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It's been phenomenal. and I decided originally to do, I was originally thinking
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about maybe doing speech, maybe debate.
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You know, I wasn't quite sure yet, but I kind of just knew I wanted to do debate.
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You know, it's kind of just that feeling you have because I've always loved
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finding loopholes and proving people wrong.
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When I was a small child, my mom always tells me, she always brings up a story.
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I was like three years old and she told me to stop jumping on the couch and
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I stood on a chair and jumped to the couch and I looked at her and I was like,
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I jumped to the couch, not on it. I just landed on the couch and I've always been that way.
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And I've always been very nitpicky with logic and words.
00:17:37.845 --> 00:17:41.005
And so it just, it felt right. And I've been loving it.
00:17:42.750 --> 00:17:48.610
My sister, she went to a different high school, but she was my first introduction
00:17:48.610 --> 00:17:51.130
to like what speech and debate is.
00:17:51.410 --> 00:17:56.310
And I would always see her like writing different kinds of poems for classes
00:17:56.310 --> 00:17:59.150
and everything. And that's what kind of introduced me to poetry.
00:17:59.390 --> 00:18:04.970
So I've been writing poetry for a while, but it wasn't until my sophomore year,
00:18:05.030 --> 00:18:09.730
which was last year, where I got the opportunity to perform for Poetry Out Loud
00:18:09.730 --> 00:18:14.410
and as well be the intro piece for the Story Stitchers.
00:18:14.690 --> 00:18:20.750
And that kind of gave me the confidence to want to do it in the club.
00:18:20.930 --> 00:18:24.450
And then I found out more about the club and I was able to join the team.
00:18:25.650 --> 00:18:28.730
How about you guys? Why did you get involved? So like I said,
00:18:28.750 --> 00:18:34.170
I did it in high school and like both of my sisters did it. So just that experience,
00:18:34.250 --> 00:18:36.130
I want to give it to these kids and grow a team.
00:18:36.430 --> 00:18:41.930
It's not just about winning and getting their confidence in front of people
00:18:41.930 --> 00:18:44.710
and telling stories or telling their argument.
00:18:45.510 --> 00:18:48.550
In response to Logan, I bet you were quite a lawyer.
00:18:50.470 --> 00:18:53.130
I've been told multiple times I should be a lawyer, you know.
00:18:53.610 --> 00:18:56.310
It's a kind insult to kids. Yeah.
00:18:57.010 --> 00:19:01.650
I think for me, it's Leia's fault. Oh, hello?
00:19:02.910 --> 00:19:05.970
What's that supposed to mean? Last year was my first year in Afton,
00:19:06.050 --> 00:19:08.970
and she performed twice at two of the assemblies we had.
00:19:09.170 --> 00:19:13.990
And after the second time, do you remember, I came up to you and I said, do you compete that?
00:19:14.510 --> 00:19:21.170
And her response was, I can compete this? I was like, okay, let's investigate this further.
00:19:21.530 --> 00:19:23.470
And so that's how...
00:19:24.680 --> 00:19:32.200
I got here because there's so much talent in this building, and I wanted a way
00:19:32.200 --> 00:19:35.760
for it to be showcased, right?
00:19:35.940 --> 00:19:39.160
Where it's different, where you don't have to be on a big stage,
00:19:39.380 --> 00:19:42.360
and where you have a smaller group, so there's the camaraderie,
00:19:42.740 --> 00:19:46.540
right? My experience was as a judge before I moved back to St.
00:19:46.640 --> 00:19:51.840
Louis, and so I didn't know the ins and outs of putting the pieces together.
00:19:51.840 --> 00:19:55.180
Miss Rice is the, what do we call it?
00:19:55.280 --> 00:19:59.080
She cuts the pieces for speech so that they all flow, you know,
00:19:59.200 --> 00:20:04.140
and it's really fun to see them all pick a piece that's meaningful to them or
00:20:04.140 --> 00:20:05.340
something they want to share.
00:20:05.680 --> 00:20:11.240
You know, Leah found three poems on her own that she's very passionate about and put them together.
00:20:12.100 --> 00:20:15.280
Jackie picked her piece from a book that she liked, right?
00:20:16.040 --> 00:20:23.140
Our other features, same thing. or they picked something fun.
00:20:23.320 --> 00:20:29.240
We have one kid doing storytelling where you memorize a child's book and perform
00:20:29.240 --> 00:20:32.860
it as if you had an audience of, I don't know, six-year-olds.
00:20:33.680 --> 00:20:39.520
So it's just really fun to see them come out of their shelves and perform something
00:20:39.520 --> 00:20:41.340
that they really love doing.
00:20:42.180 --> 00:20:50.100
With Rice cutting all the pieces, every time on my ballads, she helps write everyone's intro.
00:20:50.100 --> 00:20:54.840
And so every time on a ballot it says i loved your intro i'm like hey miss rye
00:20:54.840 --> 00:21:01.360
guess what they said that's good a lot of positive feedback all right well let's
00:21:01.360 --> 00:21:06.620
round out this episode with maybe a favorite memory or story from speech and
00:21:06.620 --> 00:21:08.320
debate team you want to go first.
00:21:09.907 --> 00:21:15.187
Think a little bit what you've felt? Honestly, I think it's an ever-growing memory.
00:21:15.427 --> 00:21:19.867
I think every tournament, you know, having us all as a big team hang out,
00:21:19.867 --> 00:21:23.687
we're always constantly just enjoying each other's presence and walking between
00:21:23.687 --> 00:21:28.027
rounds, you know, having a lot of fun and kids from other schools.
00:21:28.087 --> 00:21:32.227
I've met everyone I've debated, you know, it's not a lot to picture some heated
00:21:32.227 --> 00:21:36.447
argument, but they've been so friendly and we've been so nice and I've made,
00:21:36.967 --> 00:21:40.327
double digits, you know, I've made so many friends from other schools,
00:21:40.507 --> 00:21:42.787
and I've helped them with their debates, they've helped me with ours.
00:21:43.227 --> 00:21:46.247
Just after we finished last tournament, Biz Bay, I could tell you,
00:21:46.407 --> 00:21:49.327
a kid came up to us and was like, hey, I think you'd like this,
00:21:49.387 --> 00:21:50.507
and we're showing us all this stuff.
00:21:50.727 --> 00:21:56.287
And it's just, it's the community and just kind of the interconnectedness we
00:21:56.287 --> 00:21:59.167
all feel throughout all the school districts doing this.
00:21:59.347 --> 00:22:01.707
That is really amazed me and I've really enjoyed.
00:22:02.167 --> 00:22:07.607
Yeah, I would 100% agree. That's probably the best part, just everyone coming
00:22:07.607 --> 00:22:08.787
together and just hanging out.
00:22:10.772 --> 00:22:16.412
I just, the tournaments, the practices, everyone, we've kind of become like
00:22:16.412 --> 00:22:20.092
a family almost because we're around each other a lot.
00:22:20.572 --> 00:22:26.512
And we have inside jokes that we've made that only people on the speech and
00:22:26.512 --> 00:22:30.292
debate team would understand, like quoting each other's pieces.
00:22:30.292 --> 00:22:33.572
And yeah just at
00:22:33.572 --> 00:22:36.592
competitions at tournaments people would
00:22:36.592 --> 00:22:39.672
think that because it's a tournament a competition you're competing against
00:22:39.672 --> 00:22:44.552
people that there would be like a rivalry and stuff I've competed against Leia
00:22:44.552 --> 00:22:49.152
before and I compliment her and anytime we're like in the same room I try to
00:22:49.152 --> 00:22:55.312
give her feedback so she can improve her next round and we time each other and
00:22:55.312 --> 00:22:58.532
yeah like I've made many friendships, like Logan said,
00:22:59.132 --> 00:23:02.732
through tournaments when I'm in rooms with other people from other schools.
00:23:02.772 --> 00:23:09.092
And we just have our, we share a bond of speech and debate. Yeah. Great.
00:23:10.472 --> 00:23:16.132
Sorry. I definitely agree with everybody. I love the community and I love being around everybody.
00:23:16.652 --> 00:23:20.452
My favorite memory, like, is from our last tournament.
00:23:20.452 --> 00:23:23.692
My partner and I, that was our first time competing like together as
00:23:23.692 --> 00:23:26.812
a group we did not expect to win we were
00:23:26.812 --> 00:23:29.712
expecting probably like fourth or
00:23:29.712 --> 00:23:33.672
fifth place and finding out
00:23:33.672 --> 00:23:37.372
that we made it to the finals and then finding out that we actually won like
00:23:37.372 --> 00:23:41.172
we were just jumping up and down and like our families were there and that was
00:23:41.172 --> 00:23:45.432
just like a great moment for all of us i specifically remember where both you
00:23:45.432 --> 00:23:49.232
and james and me and lindsey were both informed that we had made semi-finals
00:23:49.232 --> 00:23:52.752
and just that feeling you know we were all so happy, you know? Yeah.
00:23:54.262 --> 00:24:00.782
For the first tournament, Rebecca's original partner dropped out on her. So I had to sub in day of.
00:24:01.522 --> 00:24:06.022
Day of. And that was certainly something I kind of bombed the first round.
00:24:06.122 --> 00:24:07.422
But everything else we did well in.
00:24:07.962 --> 00:24:12.722
And with tournaments, like you, people will say it, but you really do see the
00:24:12.722 --> 00:24:15.002
same people and you become friends with them.
00:24:15.342 --> 00:24:20.502
And I definitely love all the inside jokes we have. Like we have XOXO pink crayon.
00:24:20.582 --> 00:24:21.942
Come on, I hope I never tell.
00:24:22.182 --> 00:24:25.162
It was an elbow like grandma. With the elbow, like grandma.
00:24:25.442 --> 00:24:27.822
And then we have my piece.
00:24:28.982 --> 00:24:35.202
The sis. Yay! She has to scream the sister's name because she just like essentially died.
00:24:35.462 --> 00:24:37.642
We just made Rebecca's partner job for medical reasons.
00:24:39.342 --> 00:24:43.262
Exaggerated medical reasons. Okay. Shade is being...
00:24:44.622 --> 00:24:47.682
They call me schizophrenic. Damn!
00:24:49.622 --> 00:24:53.522
The last tournament, too, lots of people mentioned, people were like,
00:24:53.882 --> 00:24:55.242
What school are you guys from?
00:24:55.442 --> 00:24:59.862
What school are you? Where are you from? Because they were so...
00:25:01.788 --> 00:25:05.028
We haven't been on the scene for a while, as I understand, you know.
00:25:05.568 --> 00:25:11.328
And so people were, I don't want to say shocked because obviously we can do great things.
00:25:11.888 --> 00:25:16.548
I'm not shocked, right? But other people were like, wait a minute,
00:25:16.568 --> 00:25:17.888
where did y'all come from?
00:25:18.108 --> 00:25:20.928
Definitely found it shocked. You're from a public school?
00:25:21.188 --> 00:25:24.588
I don't know, that felt good to me. Yeah.
00:25:25.368 --> 00:25:27.028
What about you? Favorite memory story?
00:25:27.888 --> 00:25:29.908
Yeah, last, we're the last tournaments.
00:25:30.868 --> 00:25:35.388
Leah, one of our kids, was performing and I've run the piece with him multiple times.
00:25:35.548 --> 00:25:40.608
I've cut it so I know it, word for word, and so we're sitting there in final
00:25:40.608 --> 00:25:43.448
round, and he's just making it up.
00:25:43.748 --> 00:25:45.748
Like, he is... Much improv. I mean, he's in character.
00:25:46.068 --> 00:25:48.248
He's doing the right characters, but some of the lines were,
00:25:48.528 --> 00:25:52.308
don't know where they came from, but that's where Pink Crayon came from,
00:25:52.408 --> 00:25:54.848
XO, XO Pink Crayon, so that was my favorite.
00:25:55.873 --> 00:26:01.073
Yeah, there's last tournament, I made up half my piece the first two rounds.
00:26:02.673 --> 00:26:06.333
Yeah, still telling the same story, but crazy improv.
00:26:06.793 --> 00:26:10.953
It's called Artistic Liberty. Yes, yes, yes. Let's reclassify it.
00:26:11.093 --> 00:26:12.313
Jade, you say it was intentional.
00:26:13.073 --> 00:26:16.233
It so was intentional. Yeah, see? Yeah.
00:26:16.633 --> 00:26:22.073
Because she writes letters, and at one point I'm just like, as I've said in all my other letters.
00:26:22.533 --> 00:26:25.333
When I go to Jinba, I might get an unintentional solo.
00:26:27.853 --> 00:26:28.693
Oh, wow.
00:26:30.993 --> 00:26:36.133
All right. Well, thanks for those favorite memories and stories.
00:26:36.633 --> 00:26:40.573
Anything else as we wrap up this episode that you think might be good to mention?
00:26:41.633 --> 00:26:42.673
The best. No.
00:26:44.313 --> 00:26:48.053
We want more debaters. We want more debaters. We need more. Yeah,
00:26:48.173 --> 00:26:50.393
for sure. We're speakers. We're speakers.
00:26:50.893 --> 00:26:55.293
We're definitely growing. We're very small. I think that's definitely been a
00:26:55.293 --> 00:27:01.013
big part of the shock, too, is we're such a small group of people, but we've all done well.
00:27:01.173 --> 00:27:03.193
We've all placed so high in our categories.
00:27:03.513 --> 00:27:07.113
You know, we really, from other schools' perspective, we kind of came out of nowhere.
00:27:07.453 --> 00:27:11.213
And we were probably like one of the top placing schools last tournament,
00:27:11.433 --> 00:27:14.253
surely. Like we had like in our respective categories.
00:27:14.673 --> 00:27:19.133
In our categories, yeah. We are always looking for judges. So if anybody who
00:27:19.133 --> 00:27:23.513
listens to judge, a requirement to compete is to bring judges.
00:27:23.853 --> 00:27:30.513
So, Dr. Brock, if you're available to judge, you just let me know or anybody else.
00:27:30.773 --> 00:27:35.453
I'll get it on the calendar for sure. Tournaments are scheduled great. Nothing is ever late.
00:27:36.253 --> 00:27:40.673
Like last year, we didn't go to any tournaments. Like we just had one tournament
00:27:40.673 --> 00:27:42.793
in front of everybody. It didn't go anywhere.
00:27:43.413 --> 00:27:48.893
But because speech and debate seems like such a core like obvious club in a
00:27:48.893 --> 00:27:52.953
high school but we didn't have one so thank you miss rice.
00:27:56.441 --> 00:28:00.721
All right, well, as we wrap up this episode, again, thanks to you guys for being the sponsors.
00:28:00.981 --> 00:28:04.401
Sounds like you're doing a great job and sounds like you guys are well on your
00:28:04.401 --> 00:28:07.241
way. I'm not surprised at all that you guys are doing well.
00:28:07.401 --> 00:28:09.961
So keep up the good work and good luck the rest of the way.
00:28:30.487 --> 00:28:35.327
Thanks for listening to Afton Unplugged, a podcast by the Afton School District
00:28:35.327 --> 00:28:38.807
that highlights the people and stories that make the district great.
00:28:39.027 --> 00:28:44.187
In the Afton School District, education is the most important thing we do. We'll see you out there.