Spending innumerable hours researching and writing amazing cases paid off for Milbank seniors, Camron Graham and Elexia Quintanilla this past weekend at the South Dakota State Debate Tournament held in Aberdeen where they claimed the A School Public Forum Debate championship trophy. Debaters had been researching and debating the February topic, “Resolved: the Federal Trade Commission should establish a federal regulatory framework for sports betting” since the first week in January. Their effort paid off.
The tournament started with five preliminary rounds with teams having winning records moving to quarter finals; those four winners advanced to semi-finals; and then to a final debate between the top two teams.
Camron’s and Elexia’s preliminary record of 4-1 gained them a spot in quarter finals where they defeated a Douglas team and then to semi’s where they won all three ballots over a Spearfish team that had beaten them in Round 2 of the preliminaries with a 3-0 ballot. Finals saw them debating another Spearfish team and winning four of the five ballots.
This was Camron’s second state championship in PF, having won it last year with Qualon Grant as his partner.
The freshman team of Kinley VanHoorn and Bella Hicks missed the quarter finals by one vote out of fifteen in the preliminaries. Each round was judged by three judges, each having one vote. They won two rounds, but lost the fifth by a 1-2 ballot.
Bri Hicks made it to the quarter finals in Lincoln-Douglas with a 2-1 record, and lost to the eventual LD champion from Sturgis Brown.
Other Milbank Debaters attending were Tate Pew, LD and US Extemp and Armando Chan, International Extemp and Original Oratory.
Commendations go to Armando Chan for stepping up to the plate and helping Milbank fill the spots for sweepstakes, where we placed second in the Debate section, but fell to fifth overall after IE’s were calculated. Aside from earning outstanding speaker points, one judge’s comment stands out: “Quintanilla—by far the most levelheaded speaker I have seen all tournament!”
"I am so proud of these students. Their support of each other and work ethic cannot be matched by very many schools." - Coach Kathy Tyler