State Debate
January 27, 2012 • Dustin Mulkey, Staff Reporter
Filed under News, Top Stories
State debate took place Jan. 13-14 at Olathe Northwest High School and Hays High sent four students to
participate.
Juniors Ryan Unruh, Courtney Hess, Heaven Vrana and senior Sam Drabkin went to state debate. They went in teams. Hess was with Unruh, and Drabkin was with Vrana.
There were 58 teams in the 5A division.
“We were in the top two-thirds out of 58 teams,” debate coach Zach Butte said.
The teams won two out of their six debates according to Drabkin.
Success of a good debate team is based mostly from experience, Butte said.
“We believe that 80 percent of our success as a debate group has everything to do with experience,” Butte said.
Three out of the four state debaters will be returning to debate next year as seniors, while the other one will be leaving high school.
“I hope that this experience will help the three members that will be returning to debate next year to have a successful year,” Butte said.
There were 58 teams in the 5A division.
“This was the first time in seven years that Hays High has sent two teams to state debate,” Butte said. “In the past five years we’ve sent at least a team though.”
In order to qualify for state, the debate team has to attend at least four varsity debate tournaments and has to have a winning record at those tournaments.
“We found ourselves to be successful,” Butte said. “Maybe not as successful as we wanted, but successful. We look forward to having another successful year next year.”
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