Story by Claire Mao
News Editor
Photo by Claire Mao
News Editor
Students dressed in formal attire — including suits, tuxedos, and pencil skirts — filed into Mark Keppel High School on Saturday, Jan. 24 morning for the annual Spring Varsity Speech and Debate Tournament. Competitors were seen reciting speeches or performances facing walls, preparing for the first round starting at 8 am.
Students from 19 schools attended and competed in the 15 events offered. Students from South Pasadena High School (SPHS), Gabrielino High School, San Marino High School, Flintridge Preparatory School and more accumulated to around 450 competitors. Mark Keppel students were seen around campus with bright green papers stuck onto their bodies saying, “Directions? I can Help!”
Speech and Debate competitions are hosted by the Southern California Debate League (SCDL) coordinating with the coach of the school site. Generally, speech tournaments are run by the Speech and Debate coach of Gabrielino High School through Tabroom, an independent entity used for tournament information.
Full preparation events (often memorizing a 10 minute speech, written by oneself or another) included Humorous/Dramatic Interpretation, Duo Interpretation, Original Oratory/Advocacy, and Declamation. Limited preparation events (one to two minutes of preparation before starting) included Spontaneous Argumentation (SPAR) and Impromptu.
All participants competed in at least two rounds, with the semi-finalists moving into a third and final round before the awards ceremony. Generally, around seven competitors of each of the events are chosen for final rounds.
Awards were given at 5 pm and South Pasadena High School experienced its second time sending students to the finale. Freshman Elijah Garcia-Rob and junior Claire Mao made it into the final round of SPAR, gaining second and sixth place trophies for SPHS, respectively.
“I think we’re really improving in speech … the nice thing about that is when it’s not seniors, they can just pass on their knowledge to the next year,” SPHS Speech and Debate advisor Chris Herrin said. “That’s kind of how the program sustains itself … wisdom passed down year over year from students who competed and did well and learned what works and what doesn’t.”
The next Speech and Debate tournament, Spring Novice Speech, occurs on Saturday, Jan. 31. It will be South Pasadena High School’s second time hosting the event, the first time being in 2025.
“It’s a lot of learning what goes into [planning a tournament], and not really knowing until I had gone through what it entailed. So now that I know that, I feel a lot more prepared this year [and] less stressed than I did last year hosting a tournament,” Herrin said.