Senior Evie Latman and Junior Greyson Helm are the first competitors from Tiger Speech and Debate to qualify to Nationals via competition since 2018.

Latman and Helm are partners in Public-Forum Debate. COVID-19 affected debate heavily, though throughout the use of partnership, these students claim the debate team is making a comeback.

“I have a lot of faith in us. We work really well together, and we were district champions. So I’m hoping it’ll go really well. Only two teams can make it up on the big stage and compete in that final round. Even getting to this point is such an achievement, because only three teams from our district did. I’m hoping we can make it at least past those six preliminary rounds to the elimination,” Latman said.

Along with friendships, hard work comes along with being in a duo.

“Me and my partner, Greyson Helm, compete against other teams from other schools, and we’ve had a few different topics this year, like the one for March, which looked at if we should ban corporations from being able to buy houses. So that was really interesting,” Latman said.

Public Forum topics can be anything, and aren’t limited to just domestic issues.

“We’ve also had topics about more foreign issues, like how we can help the Middle East, and if diplomacy is the right way to do that. We have to prepare both the pro and the con side of whatever the topic is, to say either yes, this is something we should do, or no, it’s not,” Latman said

Helm goes deeper on Public Forum dynamics.

“It’s a two versus two. So my partner Evie and I are debating against another partnership. We’re debating the effects of an action, the pros and cons of enacting something,” Helm said.

Debate teacher Nate Smith explains more about how Latman and Helm’s partnership was formed and how others reacted to them.

“In my conversations with other coaches in the Show Me district for the qualifier, there was a lot of pleasant surprise in these two students; they took some people by storm of sorts, which is always a good thing. And it was not necessarily a Cinderella story, because they’ve been doing very well in competition, but the partnership of Evie and Grayson was formed later in the year. So after the competition season was well underway, we made a shift, and so they became partners,” Smith said.

Smith goes on to speak about the history of the debate team.

“We’ve had some high points, and some fairly low points. Every incoming group of novices or first-year students is different, and then every group that then becomes varsity is different. So just like in any other competitive program, sometimes you’re going to end up having some really good competitors, and then other times you’re going to have some that aren’t quite as competitive,” Smith said.

COVID-19 hurt the debate program a lot due to its reliance on face-to-face debating.

“COVID was was pretty rough on a lot of debate programs this one included, although we ended up with some good competition and good competitors out of it still, it’s not like we were floundering, but I would say that in recent years, the past two or three years, we’ve seen an increase in our students motivated to be competitive versus I’m on a team, and if I win, that’s great, I want to feel good about it, but in the past two or three years, that I don’t want to just be on a team, but I want to win right, and I want to qualify to state. I want to qualify for the Nationals, and that’s obviously seen in the results,” Smith said.

An important part of debate is keeping it separated from your personal life.

“I do have high hopes for state. I do hope we win, but even if we don’t, at the end of the day it’s an experience. As much as I love it, it’s just an extracurricular in high school,” senior Raina Cadena said.