Park City High School Debate Team competes at Arizona State University

It's undebatable that Debate Team travel flight delays bring out the silly side of these otherwise serious Miners posing with a cardboard celebrity cutout. Photo: courtesy of the Hadar Family

PHOENIX, Arizona — Between Thursday and Sunday, 24 students along with some parents, teachers, and coaches of the Park City High School Debate Team flew to Arizona State University to compete in an annual, national circuit high school debate tournament.

The university hosted more than 1,000 students from more than 100 high schools traveling from more than 10 states.

An elect group of Park City debate students were selected to participate by Miner’s Debate Teacher Anna Williams. Other PCHS Debate teachers, and coaches include Mark Parker, Preston Knudson, Cas Mumford, and school alumnus Noam Levinsky.

Overall, participants described the trip as a huge success. Four students “broke” meaning  they advanced on to the elimination rounds in three different categories. 

• Lila Gabbay, Informative Speach
• Shiva Minter and Sophie Dildy, Varsity Public Forum
• Sammy Vogel, Varsity Lincoln Douglas

Park City was also represented in Varsity Public Forum by Maddie Hadar, a sophomore competing in her second year on the varsity debate circuit. Hadar presented on the topic, “Resolved: The People’s Republic of China Should Substantially Reduce Its International Extraction of Natural Resources,” while balancing her debate commitments with community volunteering.

“The tournament was competitive and intense, but our team still managed to pull through with a few people breaking to elimination rounds,” Hadar told TownLift. “Great learning experience from those who didn’t break. Lila, Sammy, along with the partnership of Shiva and Sophie all broke and held their own in elim rounds.”

The team will barely get a moment to catch their breath before they travel this week to Timpview High School in Provo, one of many in-state events they’ll attend.