By McKenna Cooley
The speech and debate team hosted Districts for the first time on Thursday, March 31 through Saturday, April 2 in the 200 and 800 hallways. Students from local schools, such as Green Valley, Foothill, Arbor View, Silverado, Liberty and Coronado competed.
Districts is one of the last tournaments that helps students qualify for Nationals, and each event sends only two to four people from each District event. Congress qualifiers happens next weekend, where more students can qualify for Nationals.
During the award ceremony, seniors Andrew Turner, Felicia Kalkman, Zil Joyce Dixon Romero, Austin Smith and freshman Claire Shamiya all placed high enough to qualify for Nationals and were commemorated with plaques.
“It means the world to me [that Districts was held at Coronado]. I have invested countless hours and almost three years of my high school career in this program, and this is the first opportunity that we’ve had to hold a tournament under our fantastic coach Mr. Miles,” Romero said. “While being a senior to qualify to the national tournament is amazing, doing it at home just made it all the sweeter.”
Because Coronado hosted, they had to organize the tournament and split up tasks between different people. Those who were not competing were helping run the competition. Throughout the entire tournament they had a concession stand open in the cafeteria where students relaxed between events.
Judges for the competition were selected by students, and every team member was required to bring a judge to the competition as part of their grade. Competitions always need qualified judges, which are crucial to the activity’s success.
“As a whole, [I am proud of] the hard work everyone put in because we were hosting, so we had to do a lot more, and everyone pitched in and helped,” Mr. Miles, Speech and Debate coach, said. “Everyone went above and beyond expectations, which was great.”
