By Valendy Pierre
From heated discussions in debate events, to presentations in speech, Debate is a class and club available to all students at Apopka High. Debate at AHS has intermittently has been around for over three decades, and will hopefully be around for years to come. Many students join debate because they feel strongly about world issues, more so than others you can say, and want to voice what they have to say. “They think very deeply about world issues—they almost obsess over them,” said Mrs. Brown the Debate teacher and club sponsor. “They want to discuss it and get different viewpoints on it.” A member of Student Congress, Janine Carryl adds that, “With debate, there is a variety of things you can go into.”
There are four main events done at competition: Lincoln-Douglas, Public-Forum, Speech, and Congress. Lincoln Douglas is more of an individual debate on issues going on today. Public-Forum is a two-on-two debate on a current topic. Speech is divided into five events: Informative Speaking, Impromptu Speaking, Extemporaneous Speaking, Original Oratory, and Interpretation. Lastly, there is Congress, which is essentially a mock of our actual congress with writing legislation and passing bills. Each event has its own captain and team.
Mrs. Brown has been the coach of the debate competitive team since 2013. She was inspired by her 4 children, who were all involved in Debate during their time at AHS. Her leadership team [the captains] are senior Chris Hamilton for Congress, junior Brody Beauchamp for Speech, junior Julia Lindgren for Public-Forum, and senior Alya Sharpe for Lincoln-Douglas. To become a captain, you have to be able to compete for the whole year and be on top of current events. The captains previously mentioned have been part of debate for two or more years. Captainship is not an easy task in debate, but these individuals always have their teams prepared.
A few of the leaders were asked if the club was time-consuming overall. They gave similar answers, but different reasons to back them up. Lindgren says that, “Yes, it can be time-consuming, but it’s easy to manage because you have other people to help you out with it.” Brody agrees since, after all, he is involved in other extracurriculars.
The majority of the topics discussed in the four main events are current events happening in our country and around the world. “Right now we’re doing gun control. Last month we did North Korea relations, and missile systems—pretty much stuff you see on the news.”
The competitive team competes numerous times throughout the school year, locally and around the country. “We usually compete twice a month at least, and that runs almost the whole year,” said Mrs. Brown. “We’re going to University of Florida for the Blue Key Debate Tournament, and in January we will be heading to Emory, UPenn, possibly Harvard, as well—we do that as well as the local tournaments.” In preparation for these events, Mrs. Brown makes sure the debaters know about every issue going on like the back of their hands. “I always tell my kids they should know more about every issue going on than anybody here…they should watch the news all the time, read things all the time,” she said. “My kids on the dramatic end of it should be reading stories, novels, plays…”
In this club you don’t have to be good at every event, there are options to choose from. Not good at this event? Try the next one. Competing may be nerve-wracking, but if you give it a try, there’s so much you can learn from it. Debate is a group of intelligent students, ready to talk about the events going on our world. With help of Mrs. Brown, the Apopka High School’s Debate Competitive Team will thrive during competitions!
Editor’s Note: The results of the Blue Key tournament came in after the writing of this article. AHS winners included:
Brody Beauchamp–Quarter Finalist in Program Oral Interpretation
Brody and Tatiana Beauchamp–Semi-finalists in Duo Interpretation of Literature (Brody double-entered)
Christopher Hamilton–Semi-finalist in Student Congress and a bid to the Tournament of Champions