Throughout the month of March, Sahuaro’s Speech and Debate team competed in two different tournaments.

March 2nd and 3rd, they attended the Southwest Speech and Debate Institute Tournament in Scottsdale. Contrary to many other competitions, each student was only allowed to participate in one event. The five students competing, Winta Tekle, Marixa Zazueta-Switzer, Christina Niyigena, Halley Hughes, and Logan Smith, all managed to break to the out rounds (place high enough to make it to octa-finals). Winta, Marixa, and Christina made it to the semi-finals in speech out of roughly forty people. Logan and Halley were able to make it to the quarter-finals in debate after being undefeated in the preliminaries. Logan said, “I think it feels like all of your hard work paid off.”

The Division II State Competition in Flagstaff was March 9th and 10th, and the Speech and Debate team took senior Logan Smith and junior Halley Hughes. They competed together for the debate section, and made it to the quarter-finals. They then competed in several events separately. Logan made it to the semi-finals in oratory and the finals in impromptu; she placed fourth in the state for impromptu. Halley made it to the semi-finals in impromptu and the finals in informative, placing second in the state for informative. Students go onstage to compete in the finals, and for Halley, it was her first time she had ever made it to the stage. “The last performance was the best performance I have ever done,” she said.

Winta Tekle will be competing on April 14 in the Rotary Club Speech Contest with people all over the state for a prize of several hundred dollars. Congratulations to everyone on the Speech and Debate team and good luck for future competitions!