By Violeta Panayotova

We have gone through a lot of changes throughout the TPA lifespan. Many clubs, many books and very many students. This year is time for a new change – more specifically with the Speech and Debate Team. While rebranding is a difficult job that will take time, the team this year has made significant improvements and steps towards a brighter tomorrow.

This year our team has grown almost five times including middle and high school and has shown its awesomeness already at two tournaments. In the last one, everyone who participated went on stage and received an award for their accomplishment.

But the question is how did we get there because we don’t just wake up and look amazing and do amazing. Behind all of our successes is an incredible coach that works every single day to make sure that our team is going forward.

The path to success begins with making the initial step of choosing a topic that you would like to speak on. This year the team has made sure that they are impactful and are making a difference in everyone’s lives. Speech and Debate is known for its incredibly open space to talk about issues that matter and issues that are important to the society we live in.

Whether the topic is children’s shows, which is the sophomore Nishat Ahmed’s speech, or something else, all speeches include an aspect that we have never considered before. Every topic opens a new door towards something that is affecting our communities and that we are choosing to ignore or are simply unaware of.

But speech and debate is not just about the serious topics. This year our team is proud to announce that our interp category has increased as well. This year we are competing with different books and plays that are cut to ten minutes and performed. This type of event challenges many of us to go outside of our comfort zone and to explore a new world of emotions and how others are feeling about a certain event in their lives.

The debate team has also shown extreme improvements with so many new people coming and showing interest in the world of philosophy and current events.

Last but most certainly not least, the middle school team has been reborn with an additional 15 people, two of whom already went to finals: eight graders Taylor Conley and Tamsin Hurlbut.

But Speech and Debate is not only about the things we talk about and the hard work, rather it is about the friends we make and the fun time we have at our team outings. At our second annual suit shopping excursion, we successfully purchased three different suits for three different teammates. The team goes to Denny’s after each tournament and enjoys a few nice pancakes while talking about Harry Potter and Percey Jackson and of course having a nerd contest. Such events that were started this year have made the team stronger and happier and ultimately more successful. I have been doing Speech and Debate for three years now and I have never been happier to learn that my team is enjoying the incredible club that speech and debate is and that are seeing the true value of it as well. While we still may be small and in the process of creating a team that will be able to out power the power houses, we are making small steps and we are making sure that that shakes the power of those houses.