The High School debate season is more than half over, filling weekends with exciting debate tournaments. Last week saw the JV/Novice State tournament held at Eagan High School, and the Umbrooks tournament took place at the University of Minnesota on November 21^st.

  The Umbrooks tournament was a great day filled with debate, delicious lunch from Boca Chica, and featured an awesome talent show where our debaters shared their diverse skills with everyone.

Whether singing beautifully for the whole room, juggling water bottles higher and higher, reciting Somali poetry, or making everyone laugh with goofy puns (“Who won the skeleton beauty pageant…? Nobody.”) and clever in-jokes about this year’s debate topic ( “What do you call a fish that’s always listening to people’s phones…? A stingray!”), debaters proudly showed off their talents.

MNUDL teams debated wonderfully at the tournament, and took home many high awards:

South High School’s Henry Holcomb and Gabe Ferguson won 3^rd place in Novice division, with Gabe also winning 2^nd speaker.

Debating for Roosevelt, Chris Oquist and Rylee Phillips were the champions in Varsity division! Lewis Martin and Aleda Hoover took 2^nd place in Junior Varsity Division, with Lewis also earning 2^nd speaker.

Highland Park’s Maria Coughlan and Lila Insook won 3^rd place in Rookie division, and Blessie Mande won 3^rd speaker in Novice division.

Washburn debaters also had a great day: Alex Dresdner and Lily Endo were the 3^rd place team in Varsity division! Noah Herrera and Cameron Bleskachek won 3^rd place in Junior Varsity division. And Ogden Miller and Beck Woollen were the top team in Rookie division. Furthermore, Alex and Lily were the 1^st and 2^nd speakers in Varsity division, Evan Walker was the top speaker in Rookie division, Beck Woollen was 2^nd speaker in Rookie division, and Ogden Miller was the 3^rd speaker.
Humboldt High School’s team of Yussanat Tway, Julio Nakazono and Ayan Khalif took 4^th place in Rookie division.

And Browerti Koffah, debating for Washington Technology, won 2^nd place in Varsity division!

Congratulations to everyone for all their hard work and well-won debate successes at Umbrooks!

Next up: the UDL City Championship this weekend at Humboldt High School!