Debate Wins 2nd & 3rd State Championships!

Debate at StateRoosevelt became the first team in the history of State-wide speech and debate contests, to win all three championships in one season! Last month the team won the IHSSA State Debate Tournament and last weekend they cinched the championships in both of the All State Finals for Speech and for Debate – Trifecta!  Among the many wonderful successes this year, one of our English Language Learners, who immigrated Africa, place third in her event at State! She has a little more than two years of English as her main language. She is fluent in five languages. She had the guts to stand up in a final round, under a lot of pressure and place.  What a kid!

Following the successful run by our three All American candidates at All Iowa Finals, each of these three students strengthened their individual cases considerably for an All American Award this year:

  •  Lily Nellan’s lead as the top NFL student in the country widened to almost 900 points
  • Murphy Burke has over taken Luke Theuma as #2 in Iowa and has moved way up the list to #65 in the country
  • Luke Theuma is #3 in Iowa and moved way up the list to #78 in the country

The top 25 earn All American Honors and then next 60 earn Honorable Mention Honors.  Considering there are more than 130,000 tracked students in the country-just being on the All American watch list (top 150) is a huge honor.  If the season ended right now, these three students would be honored.  And, each of them deserves it.

All Iowa Finals Champions from Roosevelt:

  •  Murphy Burke/Lily Nellans/Elena Hildebrandt and Andy Anderson  (Public Forum) Sr-Sr-Jr-So
  • Luke Theuma (Congress) Sr
  • Lily Nellans (Original Oratory) Sr
  • Murphy Burke (Dramatic Interp) Sr
  • Lily Nellans (Foreign Extemp) Sr
  • Max Pilcher (Spontaneous) Sr
  • Max Pilcher (Domestic Extemp) Sr
  • Claire Wallace (Expository-Experimental Event) Fr

Runner-Up Winners from Roosevelt

  • Marlee Rutledge (Lit Program) So
  • Jacob Thompson (Spontaneous) Fr
  • Murphy Burke (Original Oratory) Sr
  • Claire Yocom (Expository) Sr

Third Place Finishes from Roosevelt

  • Henry Winber (Congress) Jr
  • Jacob Appel (Spontaneous) Jr
  • Rizan Torhala (Prose) Fr
  • Michael Cummings (Foreign Extemp) Sr
  • Michael Cummings (Lit program) Sr
  • Anna Barcus (Expository) So

Fourth Place Finishes from Roosevelt

  • Danny Drane (Foreign Extemp) So
  • Jane Rice (Prose) So
  • Anson Tonelli (Domestic Extemp) So
  • Julianna Courard-Hauri (Dramatic Interp) Sr
  • Luke Theuma (Spontaneous) Sr
  • Henry Winber/Danny Drane (Duo Interp) Jr/So
  • Jenna Pokorny (Original Oratory) Jr
  • Anna Barcus (Poetry) So
  • Marjorie Lagan (Expository) Fr
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