The Forensics team competed at the first tournament of the season, receiving awards in many events and placing second overall. The team also competed in the state qualifier at Hendrickson and took top honors there as well.

The competitions take all day and require a lot of preparation to place in the tournaments, each type of event is unique and students can perform up to 10 times a day.

The team participated in the duet acting and duo interpretation, congressional and novice, domestic, and international extemporaneous speaking,humorous interpretation, original oratory, prose interpretation, and poetry interpretation tournaments.

“The students that are on the varsity team for interp and debate came up to Bowie the first two weeks of August to start preparing and several of our competitors went to the UT Speech and Debate camp this summer to gain more skills,” debate coach Brian Alford said. “In addition, we use class time and Wednesdays after school to prep, research, and write cases.”

Senior Caleb Newton placed in International extemporaneous speaking and Congressional debate.

“We have tons of state qualifiers throughout the year leading up to state but it’s really great to know that all of my researching and practice over the past four years is paying off so that I am able to place with the best there is,” Newton said.

Congressional debate mocks a real Congressional debate, and debaters will set an agenda and will get to choose from 30 topics called the docket.

“The topics we get to choose to debate range from sending aid to Nigeria to banning firearms from post secondary campuses,” Newton said.

In International extemporaneous speaking, debaters draw three topics from an envelope, choose one, and then have 30 minutes to prepare a seven minute speech with sources.

“You have to know literally everything that is happening in the world while also having the speaking abilities to teach everyone watching you, including your judges, something that they may have not even heard of,” Newton said.

The debates take place in front of judges and sometimes a small audience that will watch the debates.

“Honestly it’s always a little bit stressful speaking in front of up to three judges and 20+ people, but after doing this for so long I find it exhilarating being able to challenge myself to persuade and educate people to the best of my ability,” Newton said.

The team also competes in a duet competition.

“I’m so happy to have placed in duet. It’s one of my favorite events and  my partner is my best friend so we are really happy. We hope to go to state with the piece,” senior Chloe Byars said.

The Forensics team treats each other like family on and off of campus.

“We are really a family and all cheer each other on to win, and even when we don’t, we turn around and work even harder,” Newton said.

All of the tournaments the team competes in during the fall are TFA state qualifying tournaments and these tournaments give the students the opportunity to gain state points, and they must get 12 to go to the state tournament.

“We already have some state qualifiers in Interp and a student has already qualified in Congress and many students on the team are very close to qualifying already, and we are not even 20% done with the season,” Alford said. “Some students will qualify in more than one event at the state tournament, last year we had 17 students take 34 qualifying spots and state is in Dallas this march, so we compete until February to get the points because spring is UIL season.”