by Michaela Lamb |

Once every year, Liberty hosts students from schools from around the state for the Liberty Classic Debate Tournament. However this year, the tournament took on a new look.

Instead of hosting both the Varsity and the Novice debaters, LHS hosted only the Novice tournament, while Varsity and the awards ceremony were held at Liberty North.

Timothy Baldwin, the debate coach at LHS, and his students spent hours preparing for the tournament, a feat that was made even more difficult due to this year being Baldwin’s first at the school.

“Even though he is a new teacher, he has done fantastically,” senior Julie Staszko said. “He had everything delegated and we haven’t seen any glitches.”

Other debate students working at the tournament agreed, feeling that everything was running on schedule and there had been no major problems as of Friday night.

“I love the way he set everything up,” sophomore Maggie Klinke said. “I think that the way he made the roster was fantastic and he did a really good job prepping us and the chairs for each division.”

With his first tournament at Liberty under his belt, Baldwin has upheld the great reputation that Liberty has held for running very efficient tournaments. A key factor to the timely operation of events was the delegation of events to Co-Chairs, and from the Co-Chairs, to under classmen acting as room monitors and hall monitors.

“I’m a Co-Chair, which basically means I’m trouble shooting everything, so I’m solving all the problems that may arise in the tournament,” senior Carolyn Pjecha said.

Pjecha shares her responsibilities as a Co-Chair with seniors Jimmy Sitzman and Helen Alpern. Each Co-Chair was in charge of a specific section of the tournament and responsible for keeping their areas running smoothly.

One of the unseen, but vitally important, operations of a tournament takes place in the ‘tab room,’ where score ballots are delivered after a debate round or an individual event.

“I tabulate ballots for Public Forum Debate,” sophomore Riley Peek said. “Once we receive ballots from judges, we then make sure they are all managed out and we know who is going to face who in the next round.”

With such an important event taking place in the school every year, it is imperative for students to do their best and uphold Liberty’s reputation for exceptional tournaments. The Liberty Classic Debate Tournament teaches students responsibility, as well as allowing them to appreciate the hard work that goes into planning such a large event.

Even with all the work of running the tournament, students were still able to have fun and enjoy the experience.

“It’s a really great atmosphere. Nobody is too stressed out, that I’ve seen,” Peek said.

The tournament will not be held again until next year, and as always, excellence will be expected.