One More Step

By Payton Jarrett, 12

With Oklahoma schools attempting to return to normalcy in the last few months, one of its major strides has been with the speech and debate tournaments across the state. Throughout the 2020-21 school year, tournaments were held virtually, with students debating and performing through a computer screen. During this year, the question of in-person tournaments was pervasive, leaving competitors and coaches on a cliffhanger. 

Two weeks ago, Broken Arrow hosted the first in-person debate tournament in over a year, in which Union gladly participated. The last in-person tournament that Union participated in was the NSDA Districts tournament in March 2020, and since then, all tournaments the team has participated in have been virtual. 

The team is excited for the return of in-person tournaments because virtual tournaments lack many team-building and competitive aspects of speech and debate. Union’s speech and debate team will compete on December 10th and 11th in Sapulpa in the second – and hopefully not the last – in-person tournament in over a year.