Silver Creek Speech and Debate Take on State

Silver+Creek+Speech+and+Debate+Team+%0A%28from+left+to+right%29+Willow+Rooney%2C+Summit+Louth%2C+Bhushali+Jain%2C+Kate+Spellman%2C+Sudhiksha+Sivakumar%2C+Kaitlin+Ruth+and+Dillon+Rankin+pose+for+a+team+photo.

Photo Courtesy of James Holtz

Silver Creek Speech and Debate Team (from left to right) Willow Rooney, Summit Louth, Bhushali Jain, Kate Spellman, Sudhiksha Sivakumar, Kaitlin Ruth and Dillon Rankin pose for a team photo.

Early in the morning, members of the Silver Creek Speech and Debate Team got ready for the day. It was a cold morning, like most Colorado mornings are. However, with all the anticipation and nervousness for the second day of State, the chill seemed like the least of everyone’s problems. Students from Silver Creek, Niwot, and Longmont High rode the bus till the sun rose. The morning sun brought a beautiful sight to students’ tired eyes. While most students slept and others practiced, two students discussed philosophy. All of this while they stared at the orange and pink sunrise as the bumpy bus rattled. These two were ready for the long day ahead of them.

State lasted two days, January 28th and 29th of 2022. The days were long for the team with everyone competing all day – not getting home until late at night.

The tournament was at North Ridge High School in Greeley, Colorado. The Silver Creek Speech and Debate Team competed in three seperate events during the tournament, four plus if they made it into the Finals – which some of them did. The team competed in events such as Dramatic Interpretation, Lincoln Douglas Debate, Creative Storytelling and 1-on-1 Value Debate.

“My event is [the] Lincoln Douglas Debate,” sophomore Dillon Rankin explains. “The topic for State was; Resolved: The Appropriation of Space by Private Entities is Unjust. It’s focus was on the billionaire space race.”

Lincoln Douglas or LD–which gets its name from Abraham Lincoln and Stephen Douglas’ back of train debates in the 1850s– is a competitive event that involves two people arguing for and against a resolution. It often involves morals and philosophy. LD is a favored event among the team as most of them chose this for their event.

Another popular event on the Speech and Debate Team is Dramatic Interpretation.“All the interpretation events are where you take someone else’s work and you orally interpret it. Ours is dramatic interpretation so we took a piece from a book or a script or anything published and it’s a seven to ten minute oral presentation of a book and you’re judged on how you acted it out,” sophomore Summit Louth, an interper, describes.

Dramatic Interpretation (a speech event mostly about acting), is almost like watching mini one-person plays and is a favored event among kids in theater.

Dramatic Interpretation is also done by many others, including freshman Kandice Eastwood from Limon High School who describes the State experience as, “State was the best experience I’ve ever had. I loved meeting new people who shared a common interest with me and having the opportunity to learn from interprets that were older than me. The days were very stressful but that comes with the competition.”

State lasted two days and the competition was filled with constant, stressful rounds. One thing everyone said was that the best part was being with the team. The teams were talking together, playing board games, and cards. They just had an overall great time together.

“The team was great!” Sophomore Bhushali Jain exclaimed, “Everyone was super nice and we played cards which was really fun in the middle of the competition. Honestly the people who had already experienced it were so helpful and told me how it’s going to be beforehand and it was just a really pleasant experience.”

It wasn’t all about winning but about what we can take away from State. State may have been a stressful competition, but everyone can agree that the experiences were like nothing they were ever going to get elsewhere. Speech and Debate offers wonderful skills to those who want better public speaking abilities or just to have fun. State was an invaluable experience to everyone who went and they feel so lucky to have these shared experiences.