Hours of preparing and revising cases led to senior Anna Cook taking the stage and leading her team to successfully qualifying for a national qualifier tournament in New Orleans. In New Orleans, Louisiana the debate team faces new challenges from teams all over the nation with debate styles they have never seen before.

“I’m really excited for the trip and to hang out with the debate people. I love all of them. It’s more like a community rather than a classroom,” junior Andrew Wiederkehr said.

The debate team traveled to Monticello, Arkansas where they battled their local competition, landing them a second place trophy. This means some of the debate team will be getting the opportunity to go to New Orleans, to compete at a national qualifier.  

“We got to the championship where I got third and Anna got first. Then because we got second overall, Coach Brown said we would be able to go to New Orleans,” senior Jake Lance said.

If the team happens to place well in the New Orleans national qualifier, the team may qualify for nationals, which is in Birmingham, Alabama. However, if they don’t place well, they’ll have a chance to atone  by continuing to do well in other competitions.

“It’s the first time to get back to the national competitive scene that we were at a while ago which is super exciting,” senior Anna Cook said. “We get to debate at the national level of tournament with the best people who debate in the country, which will be such a cool opportunity and I think it’ll be so fun but challenging for sure,” Cook said.

When they travel to New Orleans in December, the team will stay overnight and head back the next day. Students will get to experience the culture of Louisiana while debating nearly all day there in New Orleans.

“Besides the food, I’m excited to debate people I have never debated before. We’re hoping to get Har-Ber’s name back out there to be reckoned with,” Lance said.