The pinnacle of the Speech and Debate season is Districts weekends. A carefully selected squad is sent to compete against the best in the area for a chance to go compete against the best in the nation. They first go to compete at an individual event Districts weekend in events such as Humorous Interpretation, Dramatic Interpretation, Oratory, Duo, International and Domestic Extemporaneous Speaking. The preparation for this weekend is considerable.

“I had to keep up with the news every day for a few weeks, pulling articles, figuring out what the most important events were, and focusing research,” sophomore Natalie Schaller said.

The same level of preparation applies also to the weekend after, devoted to debate. Students compete in Policy debate, Public Forum debate or Lincoln-Douglas debate if they attend this weekend.

The team as a whole supports those competing, even if they themselves are not participating.

“The really cool thing about our program is that everybody helps everyone else, regardless of whether they’re competing or not,” coach Tim Baldwin said. “Students who are novice (first-years) are assisting students who are competing at varsity levels. They’re helping them after school, cutting evidence for them, helping them compare arguments and edit cases. It’s a really cool thing to see teammates come together even if they aren’t competing at the tournament.”

Nerves are a big part of competing. Almost everyone had some kind of butterflies.

“I was so nervous,” freshman Alyson Oldham said. “I have never been that nervous for anything. Before rounds started, I was shaking.”

“It’s always very nerve-wracking to compete because you never know what arguments people will use and what tricks they’ll have up their sleeve,” Schaller said.

However, many of the competitors found success by the end of the tournament, qualifying several members of the team to Nationals.

“We had seven qualify the first weekend, then we had five the second weekend, but we had some overlap,” coach Michael Turpin said. “We have a total of eleven people going to Nationals so far.”

Students surprised themselves with the results of the tournaments.

“This year, being a freshman and a novice, I didn’t think I would go far at all,” Oldham said. “I thought going to Districts was an accomplishment as it was, because you’re selected to go by Mr. Baldwin and Mr. Turpin and then breaking to Nationals was huge for me because I didn’t think that would happen throughout my entire high school career, but it happened my freshman year.”

As a debate team, LHS is hoping to go far, whether it be personally or as a school. And it starts with Districts.

“I think that this team is in a unique position to finish with a school of excellence award, which is awarded to the top 20 schools competing at Nationals,” Baldwin said. “The last time our school won that was 2008. That was the only time this school won that award. We would like to have a similar year, but that means everyone competing has to do their absolute best.”