Debaters head to national competitions in Texas and Florida

The Greenhills debate team will represent Michigan at both of the major national championships this spring.

At the Michigan District Debate Tournament, held at Dexter High School on April 18, the team of tenth-grader Powel Kazanjian and ninth-grader Harry Bagenstos went undefeated.  They will compete against teams from across the country at the National Speech and Debate Association’s National Speech and Debate Tournament, to be held in Dallas this June.  The NSDA, formerly the National Forensic League, is the major national organization of high school speech and debate programs.

The team’s success at the NSDA District Tournament follows its equally strong performance the previous month at the Detroit Catholic Forensic League nationals qualifier, held at Brother Rice High School on March 4.  At the DCFL tournament, Kazanjian and tenth-grader Nikhil Chamarthi went undefeated.

They will compete at the National Catholic Forensic League’s Grand National Tournament, to be held over Memorial Day weekend in Fort Lauderdale.

This year, Greenhills resumed its participation in competitive high school debate after a break of over a decade.  The 16-member squad has competed in the event of Public Forum Debate, in which two-person teams debate both sides of a current-events-related topic that changes each month. Debaters develop skills of public speaking, analytic reasoning, and research—skills they will find useful no matter where they are in their student and professional lives.

Greenhills Debate has had notable success this year, and looks forward to building on that success in the years to come.