A contingent of 150 speech, drama and debate students from 14 different schools attended the Jan. 17-18 Neighbor Island Speech and Debate Qualifying Tournament at Parker School in Waimea. ADVERTISING A contingent of 150 speech, drama and debate students from
A contingent of 150 speech, drama and debate students from 14 different schools attended the Jan. 17-18 Neighbor Island Speech and Debate Qualifying Tournament at Parker School in Waimea.
Contestants competed in speech, drama and debate events with hopes of qualifying for the state tournament in April. The only other Big Island school to compete was Kohala High School in the speech category.
Kamehameha Schools (Kapalama campus), which had students competing in all three categories, took the first-place sweepstakes trophy. In this tournament, the sweepstakes trophy goes to the winner of the drama, speech and debate categories combined. The winner’s points are derived from number of entries qualified and students who placed.
Parker School, the current state debate champion, competes only in the debate category. The following Parker students placed and qualified for the state championship: Kosuke Kume, first place in Novice Lincoln-Douglas Debate; Savannah Harriman-Pote, third place in Novice Lincoln-Douglas Debate; Carrie Hiller, second place in Championship Lincoln-Douglas Debate; Sivan Najita, third place in Championship Lincoln-Douglas Debate; and Keala Prietto and Nohili Thompson, second place in Advanced Public Forum Debate.
Parker School had five total debate entries (individual and team) that qualified, Iolani had five, Punahou had three, Kamehameha-Kapalama had two and Trinity Christian and Aiea each had one.
The next qualifying tournament will be hosted at Kamehameha’s Kapalama campus Feb. 14-15 on Oahu. The last qualifying tournament for state finals will be the district tournament that will take place in March at Parker School.
For more information, visit www.parkerschoolhawaii.org.
