Even during a pandemic, we have found a way to keep up with extracurriculars such as speech and debate. Despite the challenges of being remote, Speech and Debate has had a successful season so far.
Speech and Debate has had four tournaments so far this year, with awards coming from everyone. Senior Kate Lurie took 2nd place in debate at the Chatfield Chill and sophomore Virginia Frau took 10th place at the most recent tournament and got Outstanding Awards in three of the competitions. Junior Eliana Joy Volin placed 1st place at the first tournament of the season, 3rd place at the third tournament, and received a Superior Award at the last tournament. Junior Grady Redding has placed 5th and at the last tournament 10th.
“I think overall [the season] is going much better than I expected considering that everything is virtual,” said Frau. With all of the awards LHS students are bringing home, it’s hard to say different.
“I think that we have all done really amazing this year considering the circumstances,” said Lurie.
Speech and Debate has definitely been difficult to translate into a virtual event, and many students have experienced difficulties this season.
“COVID makes everything difficult, but especially Speech and Debate,” said Volin.
Students performing on the speech side of things have to record their performance and send it in rather than doing it live.
“For my event, we have to have visuals… so you have to make sure the text is big enough to see in the video and stuff like that,” said Redding.
In addition to technicalities, performing and conveying emotion has been different to do over video.
“I make a lot of eye contact with the judge…so they feel emotionally connected, but you can’t really do that online…You’re not using the space, you can’t make it as personal, so it’s been a different thing to do it over video,” said Volin.
While speech-related events are experiencing barriers that weren’t there before, there have been a few positives for students who do debate. For one, no one is having to drive across the state to different high schools every weekend. Another plus with debates being live is the schedule has been more accurate than in the past.
“It has run a lot more smoothly…everything goes more according to the schedule…last year if your second round started at 11:00 it will probably start closer to 1:00 but this year it will probably be starting at 11:30,” said Frau.
When looking at next semester, students are hopeful to have at least one in-person tournament.
“I am hopeful that we can maybe have one in-person tournament because I’m a senior and I’m in my home stretch of Speech and Debate,” said Lurie.
Despite the difficulties of COVID, this year’s team of Speech and Debate is making the best of the season and continues to have a positive outlook on the season.