V OLUME 1 , E DITION 8

APRIL/MAY

NEWSLETTER The Garland High School Speech and Debate Newsletter

Our curtain call

2013—2014

UIL DISTRICT at Rowlett High School

GHS Speech & Debate brought home our 8th consecutive UIL District

Speech Team Championship! We have 10 students competing in 11

events at Region at Baylor May 2 & 3.

All 5 Gold Medals:

Emily Jilson - LD Debate

Ashley Tsao - Informative Extemporaneous Speaking

Hannan Ahmed - Persuasive Extemporaneous Speaking

Connie Ly - Prose Interp

Amani Abderahman - Poetry Interp

Silver:

Emily Jilson - Informative Extemporaneous Speaking

Wynston Pennybacker - Persuasive Extemporaneous Speaking

Liam McCoy - Poetry

Bronze:

Mahi Senthilkumar - Informative Extemporaneous Speaking

Connor Fitzhugh - Prose

Nia Young - Poetry

4th

Michael Isenberg - Prose

THANK YOU FOR YOUR SUPPORT!!!

A brief explanation of what exactly UIL district is would clarify as to why this specific tournament is so important. One, we’ve been winning it for the past couple of years, but it also acts as a method for Stewy to remember how many years that she’s been at Garland by counting the number of District Champ plaque on the wall. While this does not fall into our usual range of TFA or NFL, this tournament is held within the borders of Academic UIL.

In short, this means that the speech and debate kids wake up early in the morning to comb our hair and button up our suits while the math team and the literary criticism team gets to show up in jeans and a t-shirt. But hey, we definitely won the award for the best looking team.

The competition here allows for one preliminary round, or one shot to break to finals. In finals, an individual must place within the first three events of their respective category. From there, these competitors are allowed to advance to an all expenses paid trip to Waco in order to compete at Baylor, which really means that these lucky students get a free tour of the Baylor campus. Whoop!

Congratulations to the GHS speech and debate team on their 8th consecutive win because while we may revel in the victories over our enemies, we just really, really hate to lose.

NFL DISTRICT

Congratulations to Mahi Senthilkumar, our na-tionals qualifier in original oratory! She will compete in Kansas City at the national tournament. GOOD LUCK MAHI!

Volunteering at Hillside

As of this year, the GHS Speech and Debate team was given

an opportunity to officially volunteer at Hillside Academy to

train some talented fifth graders to compete at our annual

middle school tournament. Our lucky cast of volunteers

(Alexis, Ashley, Emily, Louise, Mahi, Maxwell, and Rohan)

channeled our inner fifth grader (oh, let’s be honest, we

never really lost the inner elementary school version of our-

selves) every Monday after school for about two and a half

months. If anything, we did Mrs. Martens and Stewy very

proud by learning how to better relate to younger children

when teaching them the art of public speaking.

I will say, though, that Alexis was a firm favorite of the stu-

dents because of his jokes that had the maturity level of a

fifth grader. But what can I say? I laughed too.

GHS JUNIOR CLASSIC (aka the Middle School Tourney)

Ladies and Gentleman, I now present to you the slightly hectic but overall fulfilling annual middle school tournament run by yours truly, the GHS Speech and Debate team. The purpose of this event is to expose students in both middle school and elementary school to the wonders of public speaking and acting. To the art of “how to present yourself in public.” And most im-portant, to understand that the show must go on even after you have accidentally tripped your way up onto the stage.

This tournament is our equivalent of a large scale fundraiser for the team with Stewy calling all debaters both from Varsity as well as the Debate I class to volunteer for the day.

After quite a copious amount of printed ballots, snacks from Sam’s, and a tad bit of confusion, we boot up this activity bright and early on Saturday morning to welcome the competitors and their coaches with a grumpy, tired frown. Excuse me, bright, sunny smiles.

From tab team, to security, to the coach’s lounge, to concessions, thank you to everyone that helped out this year. We appreciate you all!

UIL REGION at Baylor

UIL Region at Baylor is simply a continuation of those that ad-

vanced from UIL District earlier in March. Yet, this simple explana-

tion doesn’t offer a smidgen of how fun this experience actually is.

One, we got to go on a road trip with Mrs. Martens. Two, dinner is

always fun. Three, who honestly doesn’t love an all expenses paid

trip to represent our school.

Those who medalled at this competition will move on to compete at

UIL State at UT Austin. WHOOP! Congrats to all of our winners.

Oh, and one more tidbit. We saw Baylor’s bear.

Amani Abderahman won a gold medal in Poetry, QUALIFYING

FOR STATE AT UT AUSTIN!

Liam McCoy won a silver medal in Poetry, QUALIFYING FOR

STATE AT UT AUSTIN!

Emily Jilson placed fourth in LD debate. Congrats!

B

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AWARDS CEREMONY!

Welcoming the New Officers of 2014—2015

President: Ashley Tsao

Vice Presidents: Hannan

Ahmed, Emily Jilson, and

Amani Abderahman

Secretary: Louise Nisperos

Historians: Theo Winter and

Michael Isenberg

Treasurer: Rohan Rereddy

Spirit Leader: Liam McCoy

Hello all!

Once again this is Ashley Tsao speaking (or rather, writing) as the individual be-

hind these newsletters. From August to May we amassed quite a large collection of tro-

phies, medals, and plaques from a multitude of tournaments where it’s safe to say we

had a come back year. Yes, I know, I know, debate isn’t all about winning. After all,

we’ve learned quite a lot more about political affairs or how to better be in touch with

our characters, but honestly, I think that everyone would say it was nice to see a tangi-

ble object to represent our hard work.

Alas, it is that time of the year in which we must bid adieu to you and you and

you GOODBYE seniors! We will miss you dearly. The skills and advice with which

you gave to us are sure to help in the future. Good luck in your future endeavors!

To Stewy and Mrs. Martens, congratulations, you have successfully spent another

year with the crazy, will not shut up, sometimes grumpy, over excitable Speech and De-

bate team. I admire your tenacity in handling adolescents of our kind. We cannot thank

you enough for the hard work and encouragement that you both give to us.

To all of the parents who realize that it has been another year of your baby’s high

school experience, don’t worry, we all feel sentimental too, though we may try to hide

it. Thank you for all of your support. We most definitely would not be as successful

without you.

Thank you to the officers of 2013—2014, it has been an amazing year serving

with you. Lastly, I would like to formally congratulate the new officers into their re-

spective positions. I’m excited for next year!

To many more years to come!

For the last time of my junior year, this is Ashley Tsao, signing off as VP.