Over Memorial Day weekend, in May, Speech and Debate traveled to Milwaukee, Wisconsin for the National Catholic Forensic League Championships, where Alex Lim (Class of 2022) took 4th overall, nationally, in Declamation Speaking, out of approximately 250 students who won a place at the tournament. Alex delivered a speech: “What I Learned from 100 Days of Rejection” by Jia Jiang.  Alex, a ninth grader, interpreted the speech incorporating humor, a couple of funny characters and an important message about why we should all embrace rejection to help us grow.  Declamation doesn’t ask the competitors to copy or mimic the original speaker, but instead to take a new spin on it and interpret the words for meaning and clarity.

Will Aarons (Class of 2020) also broke to Double Octos in Lincoln Douglas Debate.  Colin Zhu (Class of 2020), Georgia Moorhead (Class of 2021) and Han Zhang (Class of 2021) came very close to breaking in Debate, and Sydney Tai (Class of 2022) was close to breaking in Declamation.