Wellington debate team comes up big at Class 4A State Tournament at Collegiate
The Wellington Debate team brings home a third-place trophy. Pictured from left: River Douglas, Camryn Bannister, Coach Kurt Sherry, Claire Norris and Rachel Ewing.
Claire Norris and Rachel Ewing place third at state as sophomores.
Sumner Newscow report — Add another item to Wellington’s USD353 lengthy list of accomplishments.
The Crusaders made quite a splash at the Class 4A State Debate held at Wichita Collegiate this weekend. Rachel Ewing and Claire Norris placed third and came away with a trophy.
Camryn Bannister and River Douglass came in 10th, narrowly missing the quarterfinals.
The Class 4A state meet included 30 other state-qualifying 4A teams from across the state. These were two-person debate teams. Ewing/Norris went 6-2 reaching the semifinals before losing to the defending champions, who would go on to repeat.
“Generally speaking, debate requires students to work cooperatively with a partner and engages a whole slew of higher order thinking skills, i.e. analysis, synthesis, evaluation, research skills,” said Wellington Debate Coach Kurt Sherry. “This is done while under the pressure of competition with a clock running.”
He said there are strict limits on how much time each speech lasts and how much time for preparation each team has. He states:
“They have to devise strategies and make strategic in-game adjustments independently — coaches are generally not even in the room to watch. Each round takes about 80 minutes as there are no time-outs. At most, there’s usually about a 20-30 minute break between rounds.”
Over the course of two days, then, Camryn and River did this for eight hours; Claire and Rachel spent a bit over 10 hours doing this (while wearing heels), Sherry joked.
