Neenah Debate Students Capture State Championships
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Neenah High School senior Nathan Cho earned the Wisconsin Top Speaker Champion honor and four other students combined to take the novice title in the four-speaker policy competition at the Wisconsin State Debate Tournament Jan. 18-19 in Whitewater.
Cho accumulated the most individual speaker points in the varsity policy division. In policy debate, speakers advocate for and against a resolution calling for policy change by the U.S. federal government. The topic remains the same for an entire year. This year’s topic was whether the U.S. government should substantially increase its economic engagement toward Cuba, Mexico or Venezuela.
The four-speaker policy team of first-year speakers and sophomores Alan Desai, Isaac Dorn, Brendan Steinmetz and Raymond Werhand posted a 7-1 record to win the novice division. In four-person debate, two students argue the affirmative and two argue the negative. Affirmative teams generally present a plan as a proposal to implement the resolution, while negative teams generally try to prove that it would be better not to do the plan.
Cho is the only senior on Neenah’s 24-person team. He qualified for the National Catholic Forensic League (CFL) tournament in Chicago in May. Neenah’s team is coached by Scott Thurwachter, Rebecca Rousseau and Tim Ernst.
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