Speech team takes 1st at districts

For the eighth year in a row, the Green River High School Speech and Debate team has come home with the District Championship trophy.

Every year, the team surpasses it own goals and breaks additional records from previous years, head coach Carina Stulken said.

“This is our eighth consecutive district championship and the first time we have swept every category, as well for the overall awards in speech events, congress and debate to go along with the overall sweepstakes award,” Stulken said. “In addition, this is the most qualifiers we have ever had with 15 qualifying spots and 11 students qualifying for nationals.”

Stulken was excited that the team was able to qualify three freshman.

“We have never had a freshman qualify so to qualify three is outstanding,” she said. “If a student qualifies for nationals all four years of their high-school career, they receive a scholarship for college from the National Speech and Debate Association, so we are hoping we can make that happen for a few students.”

With 18 schools attending districts, it was important for the team to do their best.

“We swept many events and had many more qualifiers over all. There were 28 qualifying spots and we received 15 of them,” she said.

Although many goals were reached by the team, some were not.

“As always at such a difficult tournament, we had several students not qualifying, many of who were seniors and that is always a disappointment,” Stulken said. “As a coach, it is difficult to see students not reach their goals, but overall many students did extremely well.”

The team will take a break from practicing, but those who qualified for nationals will start again toward the end of April to get ready for nationals in Dallas, Texas, June 14-19.

Although nationals isn’t until June, those going will start raising funds already. Stulken said attending the tournament will probably cost around $14,000 total.

With the regular season done, the coaches wanted to thank their families for all of the support throughout the season.

“We travel from November to March and it is our husbands and wives at home that take care of the children while we are gone,” she said.

District Results

First place: Green River Speech award

First place: Debate award

First place: Congress award

First place: Sweepstake award overall champion

Humor

Phaedon Jones, finalist

Dallin Hoyt, national qualifier

Domestic extemporaneous

Kaitlyn Tyler, national qualifier

Gregory Marchal, national qualifier

Foreign extemporaneous

Alexander Marchal, national qualifier

JD Richardson, national qualifier

Duet

Reina Kropf and Leslie Patterson, second alternate

Katarina Knight and Haylee Heiner, first alternate

Public forum debate

JD Richardson and Maggie Fisher, national qualifier

Lincoln Douglas

Victoria Gilliam, national qualifier (undefeated)

Abigail Grubb, national qualifier

Cross examination debate

Savannah Hook and Alexander Marchal, second place

Kirsti Patterson and Hayley Lauze, first place

Alan Halverson and Patrick Harvey, national qualifiers

Congress

House 3

Kailtyn Tyler, second alternate

Kirsti Patterson, national qualifier

House 2

Atlin Johnson, third alternate

Alan Halverson, national qualifier

House 1

Alexander Marchal, first alternate

JD Richardson, national qualifier

Senate

Victoria Gilliam, first alternate

Other Awards

Tom Wilson was named administrator of the year

JD Richardson, Maggie Fischer and Alexander Marchal all received the student of the year nomination