Columbus High competed at Warner Robins HS with 67 members of the speech and debate program. We are pleased to share that the team earned 14 qualifying bids to the Varsity State Championship among numerous other awards – and the collective efforts of all 67 students resulted in our Overall Sweepstakes award for best-performing team in all events. (This is our second overall sweepstakes award of the season.)
Individual students who earned awards and recognition are listed below, as well as a group picture. Students who qualified to the State Championship are marked with an *.
Program Oral Interpretation – 2nd Place – Saphira Etienne
Original Oratory – 1st Place – Nadia Jenkins*, 3rd Place – Neha Nakirikanti* and
5th Place – Uchechi Onukwue*
Informative Speaking – 2nd Place – Raga Yarlagadda*, 4th Place – Uchechi Onukwue
Impromptu Speaking
1st Place – Nadia Jenkins* – Nadia swept the event, earning the top rank in each of her four preliminary rounds. Impromptu was the largest speaking event at the tournament, and Nadia ranked first out of nearly 40 students.
Extemporaneous Speaking – 5th Place – Sydney Godwin*
Dramatic Interpretation – 3rd Place – HoneyRose Smith
Varsity Public Forum
1st Place Champion (undefeated) – Noor Abdallah*/Jaewon Lee*
3rd Place Tie – Owen Anderson*/Jonathan Marto* and John Cady*/Yuchan Cho*
5th Place Tie – Nandini Shukla/Sarika Rahman and Vinh Legros/Ajay Pathakamuri
1st Place Individual Speaker – Noor Abdallah
2nd Place Individual Speaker – Sarika Rahman
3rd Place Individual Speaker – Yuchan Cho
8th Place Individual Speaker – Jonathan Marto
9th Place Individual Speaker – Jordyn Howard
Novice Public Forum
We had three teams finish as Quarterfinalists (Tied for 5th Place):
Kunal Ansingkar/Kaya Basnet, Michael Marola/Noah Yoon, Ruthvij Reddi/Daniel So
3rd Place Individual Speaker – Daniel So
4th Place Individual Speaker – Kaya Basnet
9th Place Individual Speaker – Nila Karunakaran
10th Place Individual Speaker – Justin Lee
Varsity Lincoln Douglas
Co-Champion: Katelynn Harp*
3rd Place Overall: Eva Cheraisi*
1st Place Individual Speaker – Katelynn Harp
4th Place Individual Speaker – Eva Cheraisi
Novice Lincoln Douglas
We are SO proud of our Novice Lincoln Douglas debaters. At the end of the tournament, we had FOUR undefeated students in an unbreakable tie to CO-CHAMPION the event. In fact, the top 6 competitors were all from CHS!
Co-Champion: Kelly Tran
Co-Champion: Emma McClure
Co-Champion: Charlotte Young
Co-Champion: Jennie Lee
5th Place: Anika Sridhar
6th Place: Sampan Bhattacharyya
1st Place Individual Speaker: Kelly Tran
2nd Place Individual Speaker: Anika Sridhar
5th Place Individual Speaker: Emma McClure
6th Place Individual Speaker: Charlotte Young
7th Place Individual Speaker: Jennie Lee
Please join me in congratulating the CHS math team for varsity’s 1st place and JV’s 3rd place win for the southern division of Luella High School’s math tournament on Saturday. Individual winners are listed on the picture below, and we had a clean sweep for 1st, 2nd and 3rd place top scorers (Sohan Shankar, Sean Aoki, and Aryan Patel, respectively).
30 of our newest speech & debate team members plus 10 of our veteran competitors traveled to Birmingham to compete in the Vestavia Hills HS Novice Tournament, reserved for students competing in their first year in a given event type (speech or debate). Our varsity students served as peer mentors and student judges at this event to help their younger teammates grow and develop as competitors. We’re pleased to report that our students placed in every event we entered, with the following students earning individual recognition and honors at the tournament:
Lincoln Douglas Debate
Cassidy Fine – 2nd Place Individual Speaker (Cassidy decided to learn debate last week…on Thursday…two days before the tournament…so this is an exceptional achievement.)
Sara MacGibbon – 10th Place Individual Speaker
Public Forum Debate
Ruthvij Reddi & Daniel So – 8th Place Overall
Kaya Basnet – 1st Place Individual Speaker. Kaya ranked first out of 140 individual students!
Dramatic Interpretation
4th Place – Lauren Baker
5th Place – Lexi Sherrer
6th Place – HoneyRose Smith
Extemporaneous Speaking
2nd Place – Ayaan Sharma
4th Place – Emma Schweizer
6th Place – Nila Karunakaran
10th Place – May Birch
Impromptu Speaking
7th Place – Ayaan Sharma
8th Place – Lexi Sherrer
Original Oratory
9th Place – Debra Jones
Program Oral Interpretation
4th – Saphira Etienne