The Lake Highlands debate team in the past couple of years has gone from so-so to shining. It’s an amazing story, school executive assistant Karen Clardy says.
“A parent came into the school Monday asking for the principal and I thought, ‘Oh, no’,” she says. “But it turned out he wasn’t upset about anything. He wanted to thank her for hiring the debate coach. He has made such a huge difference.”
Hunter Wood became the LHHS debate coach two years ago. Over the weekend his team had a mind-blowing showing at the National Qualifying Tournament. With 60 teams competing, LHHS took three of the four nationals-qualifying spots. Basically, if this had been the Olympic trials of debate, LHHS would have taken all three of the spots!
Parent John White, whose son transferred to LHHS this year from Highlands Park, can’t say enough good things about Wood. “I am just completely impressed with this coach, and these results were incredible.”
Those results are after the jump:
For Debate, the topic was, “Resolved: Wikileaks is a threat to United States National Security.”
1st place – Jared Barton and Mark Hamilton (went 7-0) 2nd place – Roman Milan and Shola Ogunrayi (went 6-1) 3rd place – Sasha Butt and Jon White (went 6-1)
Carly Kaplan competed in Dramatic Interpretation. She placed 1st, also earning a trip to Nationals
