Last month, the Bowie Speech and Debate team continued to compete at the Anderson TFA State Qualifier, from September 27-28, to earn themselves more points in hopes of qualifying for state. This time, along with familiar faces from earlier competitions, some new names have surfaced as winners.

The Speech and Debate club is split into two categories: speech and debate. Speech allows a person or a team to perform a script, either one already made, or one they make up all on their own.

One of the new faces is freshman Gabriel Watts, who took first place in Duo Interpretation with Nadia Petru.

“[Our act] was about an orange who went around town to every line, but there was no punch line,” Watts said. “We just went and made it up, and we got first place. The judge died laughing.”

With this win under his belt, Watts looks ahead and aims to qualify for state.

“You need 12 points to qualify for state, and I got six points from that,” Watts said. “That just puts me closer to making it, and so that makes me want to do it more.”

Below are the results of the Anderson TFA State Qualifier:

New State Qualifiers:

Conner Williams and Katie Golson in Public Forum Debate

Ashlyn Dahl in Congressional Debate

Zoe Bouck and Connor Snow in Duet Acting

1st place:

Ashlyn Dahl in Congressional Debate

Conner Williams and Katie Golson in Public Forum Debate

Zoe Bouck and Connor Snow in Duet Acting

Erin Everette in Program Oral Interpretation

Alyssa Shumaker in Dramatic Interpretation

Riley McCue in Humorous Interpretation

Nadia Petru and Gabriel Watts in Duo Interpretation

2nd place:

Haley Pousson and Riley McCue in Duet Acting

Haley Pousson and Alyssa Shumaker in Duo Interpretation

Kaia Pierce in Dramatic Interpretation

Tristan Rath in Humorous Interpretation

Nadia Petru in Program Oral Interpretation

3rd place:

Kaia Pierce and Sydney Reinhart in Duet Acting

Kaia Pierce and Tristan Rath in Duo Interpretation

Gabriel Watts in Dramatic Interpretation

Kaia Pierce in Program Oral Interpretation

Connor Snow in Humorous Interpretation