According to Ivy Yan, debate team president and junior, the debate team has experienced two successful weekends of competition at both Southport and Shortridge High Schools.

“Although it (Southport) was one of our smaller meets, we had a great time,” Yan said.

According to club sponsor Susan Johnson, the team members dressed up last Friday to look professional for their Shortridge debate. Johnson said that the team is gaining more debaters at every meeting and now the team has about 50 members and is continuing to be a strong competitor against other schools at meets.

“We’ve been competitive at every meet,” Johnson said.

According to Johnson, the team is looking forward to districts and qualifying as many members to nationals as possible.

“Districts is the big thing (before nationals),” Johnson said.

One of the team’s strong pairings this year, has been the “public forum duo” of junior Elise Ruff and sophomore Amy Whittle. According to Ruff, both she and Whittle placed first last weekend at Shortridge and earlier in the season at Kokomo.

“The tournaments have been a lot of hard work, but it’s paid off,” Ruff said, via e-mail.

Ruff said that the team has been great to work with and she looks forward to continued success through next semester.

“So far it’s been a really great season,” Ruff said. By Patrick Bryant <[email protected]>