Texans fight for high honors in speech, debate

Competition isn’t relegated to only fields, courts, diamonds, or pitches. There are certain accolades set in fields of endeavor that are rarified air, set so as to make it difficult to attain for even the best of the best. The one percent.

Yet, there are a handful of Wimberley High School students that are working to earn that esteemed honor. Guided by Kyla Brookshier-DeLeon — Professional Communication teacher, UIL Coordinator and Director of Forensics — members of the Wimberley Speech and Debate team enter contests throughout the year in both the Texas Forensic Association and the University Interscholastic League to earn the points necessary.

“The National Speech and Debate Association has an honor society for Speech and Debate. Within the honor society is a designation of superior distinction which is 750 points,” explained Brookshier-DeLeon. “Once a student reaches 750 points, and your GPA is a certain level, you can then qualify for the Academic All American award. Less than 1% of students all across the nation that are on a speech and debate team qualify for this award.”

2021 Wimberley graduate Jack Garrett qualified for the award, and now, a small contingency of students have their eyes set on the prize, including this year’s homecoming queen Azula Hunter-Thiam. The senior has both the grade point average and has accumulated points to be within striking distance and her competitive juices are driving her to achieve the standard.

“I participate in TFA dramatic interpretation and duet acting and UIL prose interpretation.I needed 10 points to qualify for state in dramatic interpretation but have accumulated 28 points this year so far,” shared Hunter-Thiam. “I honestly could not ask for a better, more supportive community. I feel like in my extracurriculars, there’s such a great hub of theater and arts in Wimberley that not everyone's super aware of, but it's definitely there.”

Hunter-Thiam is a member of National Honor Society and PALS. She has applied to New York University as well as acting schools in London but is hoping to hear good news about acceptance at NYU as early as March. She was also invited to participate in the Student Advisory Committee along with fellow team member Kathryn McKinney to add input to concerns of students regarding the school system and their community.

“Acting is definitely the dream and I’m still pursuing that,” shared Hunter-Thiam. “I'm very outspoken about the issues in our school. I think that while we have a lot of things to be proud of, we also have a lot of things that need improvement. I want to leave the school better than how I found it” Josh Bober is a junior participating in policy debate with debate team captain McKinney. Both have accumulated nearly 600 points toward the Academic All American award with another year left of high school. This past weekend, Bober, McKinney and their partner Sammy Shelor competed at the Tiger Tussle in Dripping Springs. Bober had guaranteed a performance that would lead them to state qualification and they did not fail, finishing second in the finals against Westlake High School in World Schools Debate.

“I’m also doing world schools and domestic extemporaneous speaking but I feel like my strength is in policy debate,” said Bober. “I’ve played baseball the last two years but will transition out and participate in long distance track this year.”

Sophomore Gage Trudeau competes in world schools debates, extemporaneous speaking, prose, congressional debate and, his favorite, informative speaking. Trudeau plays JV tennis, is on Student Council and competes in UIL academics as well.

“I’ve qualified for congressional debate. There's a lot of preparation that goes into it but once you're competing it is a lot of fun,” mused Trudeau. “We have 20 bills that we had to prepare for and write different speeches to present. Then we presented them in a classroom. I really enjoyed that.”

Brookshier-DeLeon’s teams compete in the National Speech and Debate Association in the Heart of Texas district which puts them with all the Austin schools.

“We did really well last year, taking four kids to Nationals in Kentucky, which was awesome. Nationals are in Arizona this year and we’re hoping to have at least one qualify for nationals. The competition takes place in Phoenix next June,” DeLeon explained.

McKinney is involved in Student Council as the junior class secretary and plays the alto saxophone in the Jazz Band at Wimberley High School. She has qualified for state in congressional debate for the second year and participates in UIL academics in literary criticism and ready writing.

“I’m focused on policy debate. That's definitely my passion and what I enjoy the most. I feel it will equip me best for what I want do,” shared McKinney.” I want to go into law so I feel like that's definitely been a really useful tool.”

Brookshier-DeLeon’s confidence in her team carries over to the team members. It has spurred them to success in their various platforms. Their active participation, continually engaged in competition, is pushing them toward distinction and recognition in areas that receive less notoriety in high school but prepare them for excellence beyond their cap and gowns.