Debate Team Scores at State

In just the second year of the debate program, the team concluded its season earning sixth place in the district competition and then competing in the state tournament with two juniors, Pooja Patel and Sarah Brew, placing 25th in public forum. Senior Ji Eun Han made the semifinal round in Congressional Debate.

Following is an article written by junior Ben Hochstetler in the student newspaper, Reflector (see full issue).

The NFL has finally come to Bethany Christian High School. However, this is not the NFL that first comes to mind. No, this does not mean that our school will now battle the New Orleans Saints or the Indianapolis Colts on Monday Night Football. On the contrary, the school’s NFL team competes against Plymouth, Muenster, Chesterton, Concord and other area high schools on Saturday mornings.

The Bethany NFL stands for the National Forensics League, commonly known as the speech and debate team. The team competes from October to March with many other high schools to earn “degrees,” which are the white certificates located on the wall of Forensics coach Michael Yeakey’s room. The team is divided up into two groups, speech students and debate students. Both teams have been successful and hope to attain many more accomplishments as the season enters its final months.

The speech team consists of about 95% of the forensics team and is considered by many other schools to be  highly competitive. The events offered at speech meets vary from Impromptu (think and perform a 5 minute speech with 30 seconds of prep time) and Original Oratory, in which a student writes, memorizes, and performs a speech. The speech season lasts considerably longer than the debate season and is more popular among the Bethany student population.

The debate team is also experiencing high levels of success. This team, though significantly smaller than the speech team, is very competitive and also performs regularly. There are 4 types of debate offered by the NFL. These types range from PFD (two on two debate), Congress (6 ½ hours of 1 versus 25 debate), Lincoln-Douglas (a more philosophical version of PFD), and Policy debate. Bethany students Ben Hochstetler  (’12), Pooja Patel (’12), Sarah Brew (’12), Peter Schrock (’12), Paige Wheeler (’12), Grace Whiteford (’12), and Ji Eun Han (’11) all participated in both speech and debate.

If you are interested in joining the speech or debate team, find Michael Yeakey in the hall or ask somebody who is in it. The team could always use more people so come and join the fun.