The Bowie speech and debate team competed against 115 schools across the nation last weekend at the UT Longhorn Classical. Bowie came home with two new state qualifications, three national bids, and a tournament championship.

Sophomore Alyssa Shumaker, was a new state qualifier in duo interpretation at the UT Longhorn classic debate.

“The UT Longhorn Classic is one of our most competitive tournaments all year. People from all over Texas and even some from out of state come and compete,” Shumaker said. “I compete in Duet, Duo, and DI usually.”

For state qualifiers, this is not the end, after qualifying, competitors move on to the second level were they will compete once again.

“Being a state qualifier for speech means that you have gained twelve points competing in an event at various tournaments. The points depend on your ranking with first giving the most points,” Shumaker said. “The next step after qualifying for state is to really prep your piece and make sure it is as good as possible so that you can be competitive on a state level.”

Senior Tate Weston, placed first in Lincoln Douglas Debate out of 175 competitors all around the nation.

“Being a finalist means different things in different events,” Weston said. “I was the champion so I was first out of over 200 competitors.”

The UT debate tournament is judged based on a bid tournament, to qualify you must have two bids.

“The UT Tournament is what’s called a bid tournament to the tournament of champions which is held in April. To qualify you need 2 bids, usually only about sixty people in the nation qualify. UT was a semifinals bid which means if you get to semifinals (top 4) you receive one bid to the TOC.” Weston said.