The Middle School Debate Team recently had a handful of seventh and eighth graders participate in the Taylor debate tournament in Katy ISD. This was a large, challenging competition at the high school level. There were 50 schools attending from throughout the Houston area, as well as from Dallas.
Kinkaid had an outstanding showing as the youngest students in the competition. Kinkaid Middle School students debated mostly freshmen and sophomores.
There were 95 total entries in the beginning division of Lincoln-Douglas Debate. After the three preliminary rounds, the tournament advanced the top 32 based on win-loss record. Kinkaid had 10 students advance, most of whom were undefeated, giving the team about one third of those in the elimination rounds despite how huge and difficult this tournament was. Kinkaid was the most represented school in the elimination rounds!
Going into quarterfinals, Kinkaid represented half the field with 4 of the top 8. Kinkaid’s top finisher was Sam Segal who reached semifinals and earned third place. Other Kinkaid students in the top 8 were Jiya Ghei, Taqi Hasnain, and Anna Thomas. Also advancing to the top 32 were Thomas Garrison, Lauren Ho, Collin Lawrence, David Liang, Amanda Roff, and Minhhy Truong.
In addition to these debate accomplishments, Kinkaid also earned three of the top 10 speaking awards, with Sam Segal getting 2nd, David Liang getting 3rd, and Anna Thomas getting 4th.
Finally, Kinkaid had two seventh grade teams entered in beginning Public Forum Debate. They were the partnerships of Amy Ho/Dani Knobloch and Rohan Kumar/Jack Neblett. For Amy and Dani, this was their first tournament ever, and for Rohan and Jack, it was their second. Neither team advanced, but both did win rounds against high school teams, which shows a lot of natural talent at such a young age.
Congrats to all these students for their hard work!
-- Middle School Debate Coach, Stacy Thomas