The City High debate team presented some of their final arguments of the year at the Iowa Memorial Union last Friday and Saturday for the Iowa Forensic League State Competition.
“We debated whether or not the United States Federal Government should substantially increase its exploration and/or development of space on the earth’s mesosphere,” Ava Vargason ‘13 said, “We will have three rounds where we are affirming the resolution; debating for the resolution of exploration of space, and then three rounds where we negate the resolution; trying to prove that some other team’s plan is a really bad idea; one that will most likely leading to nuclear war and extinction.”
The City High Debate team works hard towards the beginning of their season, compiling several files of information on the subject and preparing their arguments.
“We knew what most of the other teams on the Iowa circuit ran and what arguments they had,” Vargason said, “We can prepare against those; especially now that varsity debaters have been doing it for two to three years. We knew going into this tournament who our main competition was, who we could potentially lose to, who we can beat, and who we will need to work really hard to defeat.”
The IFL State Competition was an open division tournament, meaning novice divisions and varsity divisions compete together. Varsity debate members Ava Vargason and Kieran Green won four debates and lost one. They went on to compete in octofinals, but came up just short. Henry Wright ‘14 and Drew Gartner ‘15 won three rounds and lost two; they also made it to octofinals, but succumbed to West High.
