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COUNTY DEBATE CHAMPS: Hudson scored a sweep of the  County debate tournament, taking both top spots. Above is the first place team with the runner-up team.
 

For the first time since 1997 the Hudson debate team brought home a championship trophy from the county debate tournament!  To make that accomplishment sweeter, they also brought home a runner-up trophy-the first since 2003.

Students were grouped into units for the tournament, with each unit consisting of four students, two on the affirmative team and two on the negative team.  Hudson advanced four of their six units to the second day quarterfinals where teams were seeded to determine which units would debate against each other.  In the quarterfinal, the two Hudson varsity teams debated against each other in a very close debate resulting in the unit of Heidi Stockford, Nikki Borst, Samantha Tennis, and Zach Warner advancing to the semi-finals eliminating Lauren Shaffer, Ashley Hackett, Tegan Hilyard, and Gannon Curtis.  The varsity team met their match in the semi-final round against a tough Adrian team. 

In the novice division, all first-year debate students, Hudson’s two units advanced through the quarterfinals, semi’s and onto the finals where they faced each other.  In the final round Abbie Bills and Mykahla Frayer presented the affirmative team position of their unit which also included the negative team of Mary Bocks and Garrett Schoonover.  This unit was named novice champions over the runner-up unit of Claudia Katke and Casey Henning, presenting the negative position in the final debate, and Ashley Schmidt and Kristjun Taylor (the affirmative team of the unit). Ashley Newsome was also part of this unit in class, but due to the necessity of having four-man teams was not able to actively debate in the tournament.

As well as winning or losing the debate, students are judged individually throughout the year and awarded speaker points.  These points are based on the students’ ability in five areas:  analysis, reasoning, organization, evidence, and delivery of each speech.  During the first day of the tournament all students competed for five speaker awards in each of the two divisions, varsity and novice.  Tegan Hilyard, a two-year debate student was the lone Hudson student to walk away with a tournament speaker award.

Students who take debate are forced to face the number one fear of most people:  speaking in public.  They must research the topic used across the nation to become knowledgeable, and they must analyze evidence for validity and significance to apply it to arguments presented by the opposing team.  Each student participated in four scrimmages throughout the semester before the tournament, and each deserves recognition for their work.  Students in the debate team who were not able to debate in the tournament or who did not advance to the second day include:  Graham Woodward, Lisa Fish, Zach Shaykin, Hobbs Valley, Blake Woodward, Bradi Henson, Jeremy Busscher, Krissey McCaskey, Alycia Butler, and Kasie Hodgins.  Though they may be disappointed about the tournament results, these students have made great progress all semester.

All of the tournament wins and losses were very close and all members of the debate team deserve our congratulations on the best season in ten years, when we also brought home champion and runner-up trophies. 
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