by Kelly Conlin

Debate class is a competitive class in which students practice events such as poetry reading, dramatic interpretation, humorous interpretation, original oratory, prose reading duet acting, and debating.The students attend competitions and perform the events in front of judges. They perform it a couple of times, and then the judges average their scores and rank them in their event to see who won.

This year’s debate class had a couple of students with winning performances. At the Ava tournament that was held on February 26, senior Damon Wingler won third place for best stand up comedy. In speech and debate, schools are not divided into classes the way they are with sports. Instead, students are competing with all school sizes in the area the district covers. At district competition, which was held on March 5 at Camdenton, Missouri, senior Eddie Wilson placed sixth over the 21 schools attending districts for his humorous interpretation and sophomore Josiah Collins was denied going to finals by only one point in the storytelling category. Only the top three in each event went on to state.  Last year, three Willow Springs students went on to state.

Mrs. Weatherford said, “I am proud of the hard work the students have done to prepare this year, and I look forward to seeing what we can accomplish next year!”