Debaters prepare for tough competition
By Trent Strunk
January 10, 2007
The debate program is one of the largest suppliers of state trophies to Silver Lake High School. The current debaters continue to read and file their way to the state competition at Blue Valley.
But for four of the squad members, they still have to tackle regionals at Salina on Jan. 13, pitting themselves against some of the toughest schools in 3A. JaVon Martin, Shelby Brokaw, Jerod Barker and Rachel Cross have teamed up for four-speaker debate, where one team debates affirmative during an entire tournament and the other two go negative. Martin said he has hopes for his fellow first-year teammates at regionals.
"I'm positive that my partner and I will rock and the other two, Jerod and Rachel, will do well, too," he said.
Brokaw is also positive that she and Martin will do well.
"JaVon likes to debate more on the negative side, the side we'll be debating on, and I think it will be easy to debate with him [because] it has worked well in the past," she said.
Courtney Brokaw, one of the two senior debaters, said it's wonderful to see the novices experience success.
"We had some people work really hard and they had success. It's great to see underclassmen have some success," she said.
Even though the four-speaker category is important, there's also the two-speaker competition, for which debaters have already qualified for state. Donnie Hanson, Courtney Brokaw, Trent Strunk, Michelle Taylor, Codi Spiker and Lainey Roberson will all be in Blue Valley on Jan. 19-20, taking on the toughest debate teams in the state of Kansas. C. Brokaw said that the biggest hurdle will just be overcoming themselves.
"The biggest competition will be ourselves because we have to make sure that we aren't going over judges' heads, but we have to assume everything is going to be hard in order to do well," she said.
Gail Naylor, Silver Lake debate coach, said that she's just happy to see some young debaters going to state.
"Since we're young, I just hope we can gain experience for our projected success," she said.
Though the competition will be tough, and the judges tougher, Coach Naylor said that now it's up to the debaters to decide what state will hold for them.
"We've done our best, so now we're going to be put to the test...statewide," she said.
Debaters prepare for tough competition
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