LFHS Debaters attend Chesterton Tournament in December 2009

The Debate Team took 6 pairs of Public Forum debaters for the first time to the prestigious Chesterton tournament. Public Forum debate is two on two competition debating a national monthly topic.  This month's topic is Merit Pay for Teachers. Lake Forest is in its second season of Public Forum style debate, so we are still learning the ropes.  In Public Forum debate, teams flip a coin to determine which side they debate on (pro or con), thus they must prepare to argue both sides of the resolution.  Each round lasts around forty-five minutes.  This tournament drew teams from all over Indiana and Illinois as far away as the St. Louis suburbs.
 
Lake Forest's teams were:  Nicholas Palermo/Megan Walusiak (novice), Nina Munoz/Anna Zhou (JV), Christian/Eric Neumeister (JV),  Peter Whitney/Max Elisman (JV), Ryan Burns/Connor Kenehan (JV) and Leland Masek/Kyle Flagstad (V).  

The teams debated two rounds on Friday night, followed by three more preliminary rounds on Saturday morning.  Lake Forest had three teams advance to the elimination rounds (Palermo, Neumeister and Burns).  Ryan and Connor then debated two more rounds before prevailing in the final and winning the tournament.  Thus, they debated this resolution eight times (nearly eight hours) in two days defeating some very good teams from the Midwest.  It was an impressive show.  Individual awards were also won by Nicholas Palermo, Ryan Burns, Peter Whitney and Connor Kenehan. 

Thanks also go out to Stan Eaton and Anna Bryant for judging at the event.