With their breadth and depth of research, the McPherson High School debate team has learned about countless topics.

Failure is not one of them.

The team will send nine members to the KSHSAA state debate tournament scheduled Jan. 18-19 at Garden City High School. In addition, eight debaters will compete in the national qualifying tournament scheduled at Lyons High School Jan. 28-29.

Four members will also compete in The Debate Coaches Invitational tournament.

The team has been busy preparing.

“[For] state preparation we have a lot of practices over Christmas break and we have a round-robin tournament and at the round-robin tournament you have parents that judge,” said senior Ashley McEachern.

She believes this extra work differentiates McPherson from other schools.

“I think compared to other western Kansas schools, we put in more work and we have a better coaching staff. Also, we're constantly updating our files,” McEachern said.

Senior Hunter Hess agrees.

“A lot of people go into the state tournament with preconceived notions of who should do well, but the only way to truly do well is to do the hard work beforehand,” Hess said.

For Hess, the tournament is not stressful.

“I anticipated it being a lot more stressful than it really was. Actually it seemed like a regular tournament,” Hess said. “What makes the state tournament difficult is awards, championships and prestige that are all on the line when you do well.”

While Hess might not find the state tournament more stressful than others, he does not deny that debating is a rush.

“It's an adrenaline rush because you don't know quite what's going to come at you,” he said. “There are eight different speeches and you don't know what's going to be said in them, including your own and unless you debated a team before, and even then, you don't know how people will frame their arguments and, as a result, you don't know how you'll end up framing yours.”

At tournaments, each debater is paired with another debater from the same school and the pair debates together the entire day. Because of that, having a partnership that works is crucial to success.

“You need communication, flexibility and understanding between each other in terms of arguments that each person likes and how things operate and what position you should take,” Hess said. “You each need commitment to the activity so you can equally divide the workload before and during the tournament and you need someone you can have fun with and enjoy because you spend so much time together in stressful conditions.”

At MHS, partnerships are a balance between personal input and the coach's choice.

“You start out picking your partner. You put down three people you'd like to be with and Ms. Newton (Melissa Newton, head debate coach) decides, but that's subject to change throughout the year,” McEachern said.

While the reasons students join debate may vary, the end result is the same.

“Confidence and critical thinking,” Newton said. “It gives them confidence in a way they've never had before.”

“It helps you become a better speaker -- be more comfortable in front of people. It makes you more worldly and knowledgable,” McEachern said.

Hess agreed with that statement.

“On a social scale, it has provided me with a group of friends,” he said. “In terms of benefits from the activity itself: organization, commitment to meeting deadlines, critical thinking and leadership as well as public speaking skills.”

The rewards of debate do not come without sacrifice, however. Time was named by all as the biggest commitment needed to be successful.

“It is time consuming. I'm in the debate room on the weeks we have tournaments up to four to five hours each night,” Hess said. “It's a large time commitment that leaves you with very few open weekends. It requires a lot of work to be successful.”

Newton, who debated in college and coached debate at Arizona State University and Kansas State University, said the dedication of MHS debaters mirrored the dedication of college debaters, even though differences between college and high school debate exist.

“In college people don't care about how pretty you speak, only the content of your argument,” Newton said.

According to Newton, college debaters can spend 40-50 hours a week working on debate. While high school students do not put in that amount of time, they are still devoted.

“Students have the same dedication, just on a smaller scale,” Newton said.

The team does hold social activities which give members a beak from work.

“We have after-school parties, like our Halloween party and we just had our Christmas party,” McEachern said.

With all the time the squad spends together, Newton values the diversity of opinions and viewpoints on the team, which isn't always apparent on teams from other schools.

The diversity of the team lends itself to chief benefit of debate, a benefit which junior Chantalle Hanschu believes cannot be overstated.

“It is the single most important activity one could do to become a critical thinker and question society's policies and beliefs,” Hanschu said.

McPherson Unified School District 418
514 N. Main
McPherson, KS 67460
620-241-9400
It is the policy of McPherson USD 418 not to discriminate on the basis of sex, disability, race,
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