In order to gear up for upcoming district UIL competition, members of the speech and debate team headed to Elkhart Saturday for an invitational meet. For the CX Debate teams, this is one of their last chances to practice debating before their district competition on January 30.

    “Being a freshman, this is a whole new world of competition for me,” freshman Evan Grisham said. “I have no past experiences to compare this year to, but I think I’m off to a great start. I hope to build on my skills over the next three years to hopefully go to the state meet.”

    LD Debate, Prose and Poetry Interpretation and Extemporaneous Speaking were also offered at the Elkhart meet. Several of those competitors competed as well, even though that portion of the spring meet will not be held until March 28.

    “Having a fresh set of ears to listen to my pieces helps me better myself because self improvement with poetry interp is nearly impossible once you’ve practiced a lot,” senior Julie Cook said. “Even though I have to get up really early on Saturdays to go to these meets, it’ll be worth it in the end when I hopefully advance to Regionals this spring.”

    Wins at this meet and others have teams members hopeful about the level of competition they will be bringing to the district competition. CX debaters are down to the last couple of weeks of practice time, which means they are trying to get final preparations in.

    “I think since Bethany Gaskins and I won first place at the meet, we should have a really good chance of advancing to the state meet,” senior Ryan Slatter said. “Of course, we still need to practice all the rest of this month, but all of our teams are more prepared now than we’ve ever been.”