Speech & Debate Wraps Up a Successful '22-'23 Season

The Meadows speech and debate team has wrapped up another successful season! 

Meadows offers two formats of debate, Lincoln-Douglas (LD) and Policy, and competes at both regional and national tournaments. The Policy teams debated about US cooperation with NATO, while LD students debated over immigration, health care, judicial term limits, and Chinese economic policy.  

Debate is one of the most academically rigorous extracurricular activities in which students can participate. Each debate requires critical thinking, reading comprehension, and research skills that challenge students to learn about a variety of new issues. The Meadows competed at 26 tournaments this season in eight different states. With over 50 students on the team, there are simply too many accomplishments to list here. Each student who competed deserves credit for rising to this challenge.

In novice Policy debate, every student competed in elimination rounds at one or more tournaments. The novice team of Skylen Lundquist and Sania Mujtaba achieved finishes of third place or better at three different competitions. Ninth graders Myriam Safieddine and Kaylee Kim also had multiple elimination round appearances, finishing fourth place or better, and ninth grader Jenny Sheng finished as the second overall speaker at her first tournament of the season.  

Varsity Policy debate featured a group of sophomore competitors in their first year of national competition. Gavin Kung and Ira Sirulnick participated as a team in their first national elimination round in February, finishing in a tie for fourth place. The team of Michael Galin and Iris Sim also had a fourth-place finish. Ira Sirulnick debated with Jennifer Wang at the state championship, finishing third overall in the state. 

In novice LD debate, nearly every debater cleared the elimination rounds. Ellodee Timmer finished in first place at three tournaments in her first semester of competition and lost in the final round of another for a second-place finish. Laiba Mujtaba, Aryan Singh, and Justin Achin all had a fourth-place or better finish. The Meadows also had three students make the elimination rounds at the Nevada Novice Championship, ultimately finishing second.

We had two varsity students competing in speech events this season. Junior Ben Vinocur took first place in Extemporaneous Speaking at the Palo Verde tournament and made the semifinals at the Desert Oasis tournament. Senior Amy Choi qualified for the National Individual Events Tournament of Champions in Oratory (NIETOC) and finished second overall at the state championship tournament for the second year in a row. Special congratulations go to Amy, who is the first Meadows student to qualify for the NIETOC.

The success of these students is emblematic of the quality of academic instruction they receive at The Meadows. The reading, writing, and speaking skills that our students learn from a young age help set every debater up for competitive success. We are incredibly proud of the team’s performance and thank all faculty, staff members, and parents involved at The Meadows for preparing these talented students through the years.

Malcolm Gordon
Speech & Debate Instructor