Maydeen Merino
Staff Writer
The debate team had a victorious weekend at Politicon and the Rocky Mountain Tournament in Denver, Colorado.
Adam Pepper and Fares Abdullah were crowned champions at the Rocky Mountain IV tournament for the first time in debate team history.
Jonas Poggi and Noor Tabba were also able to beat UCLA at Politicon.
The Rocky Mountain IV tournament consists of 172 teams from various universities. The tournament begins in the morning and continues throughout the day, as long as the team gets through all the rounds.
Junior political science major Fares Abdullah and sophomore political science major Adam Pepper spent almost 16 hours debating.
The final round at the Rocky Mountain IV tournament consisted of four teams. Two of the teams were from Alaska and the United States Air Force academy.
“We care a lot about presentation, personality and debating well, while a lot of other schools just care about winning,” Pepper said.
“It was a good message to send to the debate community that you can win if you care about debating, and it was a win for our entire school.”
Several other students such as Esilanna McMenamin and Dallas Dorsey were able to advance to the finals in the novice division. Freshman political science major Mason Stackman was awarded the Top Novice Speaker award.
“I want to thank the administration for noticing how important we are to the campus,” Stackman said. “These public debates that have been happening recently are showing how integral the debate team is to this campus and how we operate.”
The debate team will host a public debate against this week and next, regarding the University’s own Young Republicans club on the topic of the midterm elections. The debate team will then compete at the University of Vermont and at UCLA.
“Debate is an amazing college program that gives students opportunities.” Abdullah said “It forces you to think outside of the box and beyond of what you have been taught,”
Maydeen Merino can be reached at maydeen.merino@laverne.edu.
