Despite the long holiday weekend, the Green River Speech and Debate team is preparing to face tough competition in Utah.
This weekend, a little over half of the team will travel to Alta, Utah, to compete against schools from all over the country.
Three public-forum debate teams, four policy debate teams and eight Lincoln Douglas debaters will compete at this tourney. However, a lot of novice team members will also attend to learn through observation.
“Competing at this tournament right after the break will be somewhat of a challenge because it gave us less practice time leading up to the tournament, but the kids have been working hard and I am excited to see how they do,” head coach Carina Stulken said.
“They had the week off from practice so they could be with family; our season is a long one and they will be away from home a lot over the next few months.”
The season kicked off about a month ago and doesn’t end until March. The students are on the road almost every weekend, which takes them away from family and friends a lot.
With the short practice week, the students will need to up the practice time, she said.
“They will be putting in a late night on Wednesday debating and getting ready and we will be practicing every day leading up to the tournament,” she said.
They will need the extra practice to be ready for this particular tournament.
Stulken said the caliber and quality of the other students is very high and Green River will need to bring its best to do well. This tournament is also set up differently than others and geared more toward the debaters.
“It is very different in the number of entries and quality of debate they will see,” she said.
For example: in Lincoln Douglas debate there are 88 entries, while a typical Wyoming tournament might have 24-42 entries in any given event, in public forum there are 74 entries and there are 88 cross examination entries.
The students all get seven preliminary rounds of competition spread out over three days and the teams they will be debating against are very good, Stulken said.
“This tournament is great to attend early in the season as it helps the students really delve into their topics and challenge their skills as a debater,” Stulken said. “They will be able to take the skills they hone at this tournament and apply them in future debates this season. This tournament is sort of a trial by fire in terms of jumping head first into the season.”
A few novices will compete as Stulken was able to get a few extra entries. She believes it will be a great learning experience for them.
“This is a varsity-level tournament, however and most of the students competing are varsity,” she said.
After this competition, the team will have another break to host its tournament on Dec. 11-12 at GRHS and there will be 19 schools attending including schools from Idaho. The team needs community volunteers to judge.
If anyone would be willing to judge, they can email Stulken at stulkec@sw2.k12.wy.us.
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