The Wayland High School debate team this past fall has had to adjust to a combined in-person and virtual competitive season.
The debaters take part in legislative debate; a variation of student congress in which they compete with more than 50 students from various schools. Students gain knowledge through research and writing legislation for the docket/topics of debate. They also gain real-life experience as they prepare arguments while improving their speaking and listening skills.
The debate team in a traditional year would travel to various league events and tournaments around the state, but this year the team was host for league events in person at WUHS and then participated in a number of tournaments completely virtual; using Zoom and the National Speech and Debate Association platforms. Students submitted legislation to be debated and engaged in three rounds of debate.
Wayland debaters rose to the challenge and represented their team and community with pride bringing home a variety of awards throughout the season.
The culmination of the season is the Michigan Interscholastic Forensics Association (MIFA) State Championship (States). States celebrate the best of the debating world; MIFA was host for the 106th State Tournament virtually on Dec. 10. At States, debaters highlight their collaboration, innovation, and design thinking in action through multiple rounds of competitive debate.
Varsity debaters Addie Huston (20th), Alecia Alonzo (19th), and Sydney VanPopering (17th) received prestigious top 20 honors. All debaters were within a few points of breaking into the finals. The highest honor is being ranked in the top 15. Captain Summer Morrison finished 12th and Carissa Yerxa 10th;
For the WHS novice team, Lilly Roberts finished 21st, Heaven Garcia 20th and Hannah Roberts 17th. Making it into finals were Jonathan Safro 15th, Aundre Frye 13th, Tyler Tylk 11th. Breaking into the top 10 and receiving awards were novices Dominic Craig 9th, Alex Oosterhouse 8th, Gillian Klug 7th and Percy Ward 5th.
Debate coach Andrea Brown said she is thrilled with both the novice and varsity teams, saying, “I am honored to work with such talented and motivated students. As a team, they are unstoppable; I can’t wait to see what they do in the future!”
