Joplin speech and debate is heading to nationals
The Joplin speech and debate team will be well represented at the 2025 National Speech & Debate Tournament.
The National Speech & Debate Tournament is the largest academic contest in the world with more than 6,700 students from across the world participating a year ago.
To qualify, the JHS speech and debate team had to go through a rigorous regional process.
“So, we had a district competition with about 20 area schools,” Joplin’s Ty Matthiesen said. “And so we all have different events. Some of us did acting, others of us did like debate. And whenever we did those competitions, we had to do a full four rounds of prelims and then a few rounds of elimination rounds. And even each of us had to go all the way and kind of win it big.”
“So some of the other sorts of subfields, like within debate itself, you can do like one on one debate, which is called Lincoln Douglas debate,” Christian Cavener added about the different areas of speech and debate. “And that’s what Annie (Spiering) did. And then Ty (Matthiesen) and I, we did a 2v2 debate, which is called a public forum debate.”
As for the speech side, Joplin’s Cade Sinclair explained the intricacies of his performance in competition.
“I do humorous interpretation where I take a speech, say a script that’s like two hours long, cut it down, get into 10 minutes, and then have to switch between multiple different characters,” Sinclair said. “Say I’m talking normally, then all of a sudden, I have to change my voice and then go into a different character.”
The National Speech and Debate Tournament is in Des Moines, Iowa, from June 15 through the 20th.
“In speech and debate, you get to meet a lot of different people, all with the same interest as you, and you get to just have fun with it,” Sinclair said. “And really, it’s a great way to meet people, get a good understanding of the world. And I’ve learned a lot more from debate than I have at actual school.”
“Not only that, but you also make a community in speech and debate,” Spiering said. “I think that’s probably one of my favorite things about it is meeting new people and becoming friends with them.”