The school’s speech and debate team recently opened its season with a tournament in Apopka in an exploratory mode.

“We brought a  lot of novice participants and we faced some very experienced schools,” Coach Jessica Hartman said. “We didn’t place, but we learned a lot from this tournament.”

Although the event was formal and the other contestants may have seemed of intimidating, the events where deemed “novice” or in other words- for rookie debaters.

Hartman originally asked for $5 from each member in the form of dues to pay for the tournament’s entrance fees  and possibly other items such as T-shirts in the future. However, the dues weren’t enough to pay for the entrance fees for everyone who was going to the first tournament. A list of materials handed out by Hartman called for team members to bring 15 dollars because too many were going to attend for the dues to cover the costs.

During the tournament, students participated in debate events, speech events or both.

After the tournament, participants sat exhausted at a table in the back of the cafeteria.

“It was really boring honestly,” junior Lizzy Marrin said. “It was also very difficult.”

By Billy Macom