Speech and Debate Team Celebrates Record-Breaking Year

July 23, 2019

Parker School’s speech and debate team celebrates a successful year, breaking numerous records.

The team finished their 2018-19 regular season with 42 students competing at the Hawai’i Speech and Debate Tournament in April, breaking the school’s record for the most ever at a state tournament.  Of the 42, a new school record of seven debaters qualified for the National Speech and Debate Tournament held last month in Texas.

The 2019-20 debate season is looking to continue the record-breaking trend with more than 15 students, the most in school history, currently attending summer speech and debate camps on the mainland thanks to funding from the Julia Burke Foundation.

Additionally, 51 students have already signed up for the coming debate season, representing nearly forty percent of all upper school students attending Parker School. Students will have the opportunity to travel to the mainland and compete at the national level in three tournaments at the University of Utah in October, Carroll College in Montana in December, and at the University of Puget Sound in Washington in January, marking the most out-of-state tournaments in a season.   This travel is also entirely funded for students and coaches by the Julia Burke Foundation and individual donors.

This year marks the thirteenth year of Parker School’s speech and debate team and the last it will be led by Parker School headmaster and debate coach, Carl Sturges, who will be retiring in June 2020. Sturges also set a record, becoming the first Hawaii-based coach to receive the three Diamond Award from the National Speech and Debate Association this past spring.