The HHS debate team competed at states Saturday, April 26, and seniors Lydia King and Aiyana Thornton won the Public Forum competition, with their topic being The United States federal government should substantially increase its investment in domestic nuclear energy.
King and Thornton both noted that it was difficult at times to balance numerous extracurricular activities.
“We definitely didn’t spend as much time focusing on debate as a lot of other people do because it takes a lot of your time and we were also focused more on Capstone, so we had to kind of put together our case in about a week, whereas usually it would take closer to a month,” King said.
While there were 12 total students on the team throughout the year, debate coach and English teacher Dylan Crigger told students they didn’t have to go to every single meet.
“The students kind of come in and out, it’s one of those clubs where you don’t have to be at every single meeting, and we had some people that showed up in the fall and didn’t come for the spring, and vice versa. I think it made it a better experience for everyone who was involved because it didn’t force them to be 100 percent committed to debate if they had other things going on after school,” Crigger said.
The win was a nice sendoff for the pair, according to them, who both knew that it was their final high school debate meet, and possibly the final one they would ever do. As Thornton and King head off to college at Davidson College and Virginia Tech University, respectively, this will be a moment for them to look back on.
“A lot of college debate is in the style of policy which is pretty different than what both of us do, and it is also difficult and takes a lot of your time so I probably won’t, but if the opportunity arises and the time is right, then I wouldn’t be opposed to doing it,” Thornton said.
Since she had already won states before, Thornton went into the competition with a different outlook than some other people might.
“Since I had won it last year with a different partner, I went into this one more so looking at it like, can I just do my best? Can I do my best final rounds of my high school career, as well as just enjoying this last one?” Thornton said.
