Tahoma High’s speech and debate program continued to roll up accolades during the competition season.
Eric Cahoon took fourth place this past weekend in the state Lincoln Douglas Debate while Connor Durkin was a state quarterfinalist, said THS speech and debate coach Matt Tucker via e-mail.
“Tahoma was also recognized with a National Award for Excellence by the National Forensic League for the years 2000-2009,” Tucker said. “This is a distinctive honor for our program and a testimony of 10 years of students’ hard work and dedication.”
The weekend of March 14 Tahoma finished second at the 4A State Speech and Debate championships and Tucker said the team’s performance “showed how the hard work we’ve put in this year really paid off.”
“Our students have worked extremely hard and represented Tahoma with dignity at this year’s state competition,” he said. “State is no small tournament and certainly not light in talent.”
Amy McCormick won the Impromptu Speaking category and took third in Dramatic Interpretation, Emily Wittman won the Interpretive Reading category, Karissa Smitth took second in both Expository Reading and Interpretive Speaking, Sadie Nelson was a finalist in Original Oratory and finished third in Expository Speaking, while Josh Tavenner was a finalist in Humorous Interpretation, Mariah Anderson was a finalist in Interpretive Reading and Cahoon was a finalist in Impromptu Speaking.
During the first weekend of March, Tahoma’s speech and debate team competed in a different area to tune up for state and earned the First Place Sweepstakes trophy at the National Qualifier Tournament for the Western Washington District. This was the first year the team participated in this competition.
Tucker explained “sweepstakes is determined by the overall points a team accumulates from its awards.”
Tavenner earned bids to two different events at the Nationals set for June in Kansas City, but, Tucker said students are only allowed to compete in one category so he chose Dual Interpretation over Humorous Interpretation.
McCormick, Anderson, Durkin, Cahoon, Wittman, Jared Fore, Brian Ellsworth and Matt Mahar will all join Tavenner at the National competition either as top finishers in their category or as alternates.
Tucker said the team will spend the coming weeks preparing for the National Tournament of Champions in Anaheim in May and the Nationals in June.
