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Miscellaneous » Season Summaries » 2017 Forensics Awards

2017 Forensics Awards

Eleven students earned varsity litters with Hannah Yeakey and Joel Yoder receiving prestigious Academic All-American awards. Yeakey also selected to World Schools Debate team.

Earning  varsity letters and pictured at right (number of letters earned in parenthesis): junior Joel Yoder (third), senior Joe Liu (first), senior Maggie Wang (first), sophomore Alistair Tollar (second), junior Jonah Hochstetler second), sophomore Fiona Yeakey (second), frosh Zana Mlotshwa (first), senior Hannah Yeakey (fourth), senior Jiwoo Wi (frist), frosh Christian Yoder (first), and sophomore Philip Krabill (second).

Earning Academic All-American honors were Joel Yoder and Hannah Yeakey. They are among fewer than 500 students nationwide chosen for this honor out of more than 141,000 student members. Lena Yeakey ('15) is the only other previous Bethany student to receive this honor.

Hannah Yeakey has also been selected to compete on the Northwest Indiana NSDA District World Schools Debate team at the June national finals in Birmingham, Alabama. Hannah placed third in Congressional debate at this year's IHSFA State Debate Tournament and is also first alternate to the national tournament in Senate.   ​

Recognized as captains on this year's team were Hannah Yeakey (senior/team captain), Joel Yoder (junior captain) and Fiona Yeakey (sophomore captain). Yoder and Fiona Yeakey will serve, respectively, as senior/team and junior captains next year. Joining them as sophomore captain will be Christian Yoder.

​Christian Yoder was recognized as high net points leader for a first-year speaker, with 236 points. Fiona Yeakey earned honors as veteran high net points leader, with 304 regular-season points.

Recognized as state speech tournament qualifiers were Hannah Yeakey, Fiona Yeakey,  Hochstetler, Wang,  Bottorff, Krabill, and Tollar.

As a team, Bethany was second in Northwest Indiana NSDA Congressional Debate, 10th at the IHSFA (Indiana High School Forensics Association) State Debate Tournament, and fifth in Class A at the IHSFA State Speech Tournament.