MHHS Talkin’ Tigers qualify seven to National Speech and Debate Assn. National Tournament

Front row: Khylan Stubblefield and Miya Ingram Back row: Oam Patel, Zachary Warren, Korbin Peterson, Max Juarez and Anthony Moyette

The Mountain Home Talkin’ Tigers Speech and Debate Team added another impressive milestone to an outstanding season February 13-15 when seven members of the Speech and Debate Team qualified for the National Speech and Debate Association National Tournament. The National Tournament will take place in Albuquerque, New Mexico June 14-19.

That seven bring the total to nine Talkin’ Tigers who have qualified for prestigious National Tournaments. Earlier in the year Wendi Goldthorpe and Joshua Johnson qualified for the National Invitational Tournament Of Champions to be held in May in Houston.

In an interesting note, there are no seniors among the nine qualifiers which point to another outstanding season for the Talkin’ Tigers next school year.

The tournament got off to a fast start for the Talkin’ Tigers on Thursday as junior Korbin Peterson qualified in the Senate for Student Congress. In addition, junior Zachary Warren also made it to the finals of Congressional Debate in the House and would later qualify in International Extemporaneous Speaking.

Junior Oam Patel, who finished in the top 25 in the country in Lincoln Douglas Debate last year, easily qualified with a perfect seven win no loss record at the qualifying tournament. Patel debated 11 rounds at last year’s National Tournament to finish in the top 25 among the more than 400 debaters at the tournament in Dallas.

Miya Ingram will also be making her second consecutive trip to the National Tournament. The junior qualified this year in Program of Oral Interpretation, the event she took to National’s last year.

Max Juarez and Anthony Moyette continued their outstanding year by qualifying in Duo Interpretation while Khylan Stubblefield qualified in Dramatic Interpretation Juarez is a junior while Moyette and Stubblefield are both sophomores.

“To take nine students to National Tournaments is going be expensive,” Talkin’ Tigers head coach John Petti stated. “We will need some help from the community to make this work.”

If you would like to make a donation to help the Talkin’ Tigers go to Nationals, contact Petti at petti_jh@mtnhomesd.org.