Maryville speech team keeps rolling
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Quality Novices The Maryville High School speech and debate team came away with the Novice Quality Award at the North Kansas City High School Novice tournament last weekend. Pictured are, above: junior Chad Sullivan, sophomore Hannah Hawthorne, and sophomore Chase Newberry
The Maryville Speech and Debate team is no stranger to success, even if individual team members become surprised by their own successes.
Surprise can sum up this past weekend, as novices traveled to North Kansas City High School and varsity competitors traveled to Park Hill South High School.
The novices – junior Chad Sullivan and sophomores Hannah Hawthorne and Chase Newberry – came away with Maryville’s first Quality Award of the year. The Quality Award gives smaller teams a chance to win a team sweepstakes award, as it is given to the team which earns the most points per entry in the tournament.
It was an impressive showing for the first-year competitors, according to coach Trudy Kinman.
“I’m always sure my students are ready to go in debate with cases, but you can never control the competition,” Kinman said. “You don’t know what arguments the other schools are going to bring, you don’t know how your kids will do with rebuttals.
“But my kids came through very nicely.”
The sentiment seems to be an understatement for Newberry and Hawthorne, who were able to fight their way to an undefeated record and a first-place finish in Public Forum. Newberry said he and Hawthorne were shocked to be on the stage at all during the awards ceremony.
“We were surprised when they called us on the stage as finalists,” Newberry said. “When they announced fifth and it wasn’t us, I looked at Hannah and said, ‘well, we’re fourth, that’s great.’”
“Then we weren’t fourth, and we weren’t third, and we weren’t second.”
The moment came as a surprise to both of them, Hawthorne said.
“We looked at each other with puzzled looks, then back to the podium, then back to each other,” Hawthorne said. “It was surreal.”
The day wasn’t over for Hawthorne, who also placed fifth in Poetry Interpretation. She said her piece deals with bullying.
“I talk about how kids in school are affected by bullying,” Hawthorne said. “I really liked the rhythm of the piece, so I took it on.
“I feel accomplished after placing this weekend. I was pretty happy about it.”
While Hawthorne and Newberry celebrated their success in Public Forum, Sullivan enjoyed more success in the events in which he has become most comfortable on the team. Sullivan earned fourth in Student Congress and second in Lincoln-Douglas Debate.
Lincoln-Douglas Debate changes its topic every two months, and Sullivan said he was less comfortable with the new topic.
“The last topic was very ‘sciencey,’ it was a lot easier to argue about for me,” Sullivan explained. “This topic has to do with qualified immunity for law enforcement officers, and it’s based more on legal and social issues.
“I don’t have nearly as much experience with legal topics or things like that.”
While the novices dominated competition at North Kansas City, two varsity competitors traveled to – and similarly dominated – Park Hill South High School’s varsity tournament.
Sophomore Emma Webb-Kirkpatrick was competing in her first tournament of the year and came away with second place in Program of Oral Interpretation, continuing Maryville High School’s success in the brand-new category. She said her piece is from the point of view of a cancer patient.
“It talks about the feelings going through a cancer patient’s mind,” Webb-Kirkpatrick said. “It’s all about the patient wanting to live life to the fullest because there might not be much left of it.”
Webb-Kirkpatrick was also surprised to make it as far as she did in the tournament.
“I didn’t even think I’d be in semifinals, but I broke to semis, and then to finals,” Webb-Kirkpatrick said. “When the finalists were called up on stage, I was ready to happily accept sixth place.
“I was very surprised when they announced I had finished in second.”
Meanwhile, senior Hannah Townsend found herself back in familiar territory, claiming her third championship in Informative Speaking in five tournaments. The championship was more relieving than surprising for Townsend.
“It felt good coming off a tournament where I didn’t even break in info,” Townsend said. “I was also happy with the edits we made, because they obviously made a difference.”
Townsend’s day was not over, however, as she also found herself in sixth place in Humorous Interpretation. Townsend said the piece she used was quite familiar.
“I basically adapted my storytelling piece into a humorous interpretation piece,” Townsend said. “Some tournaments don’t have storytelling, so for those tournaments, I do my storytelling piece.
“I didn’t expect to do as well with it as a different event, but I’m proud that I broke and I’m proud I finished in the top six.”
Kinman beamed with pride while explaining her students’ myriad successes for the weekend.
“I have great students on this team,” Kinman said. “I’m always happy to see them succeed.”
The Maryville speech and debate team will rest for the Thanksgiving holiday, returning to action Tuesday, Nov. 29 at a rare mid-week tournament hosted by Notre Dame de Sion in Kansas City, Missouri, aimed at testing the waters for mid-week tournaments. Maryville will then close out the fall semester with a trip to the Winter Classic Dec. 2-3 co-hosted by William Chrisman and Truman High Schools in Independence.
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More awards Sophomore Emma Webb-Kirkpatrick and senior Hannah Townsend pose with their trophies from Park Hill South High School’s varsity tournament. Townsend won first in Informative and sixth in Humorous, while Webb-Kirkpatrick won second in POI.