BY GUS GLASHEEN

Oregon’s parliamentary debate season kicked off with the ever-consistent opener, the Wilson Invitational on October 12, 2019. As the first tournament of the year, Wilson granted its attendees an early departure rather than a finals round: Summit’s Ethan Koester & Shilo Grayson and Oregon Episcopal School’s Alexa Tsai & Sophie Chen took home the co-championship.

When interviewed about her experience at the tournament, co-champion Alexa Tsai noted, “I normally compete in policy debate, I was surprised that my policy debate experience helped me a lot in Parli. During the [semi]final round, the topic was whether sex education should be required in schools. Fortunately, we both knew a decent amount about the topic and it fun to compete in an environment we weren't totally familiar with.”

Wilson’s 2019 incarnation took a hit in its pool size, with exactly half as many attendees as the 42-team 2018 invitational. This precaution from attending schools was likely due to the change in administration. Wilson’s ex-head coach, Don Steiner, bid farewell in 2018, handing Wilson’s reigns as head coach and tournament director over to Jennifer Felberg. Despite the anticipation for mismanagement, Wilson was, by all controllable measures, a success.

The following weekend, the Oregon debate circuit reconvened at the Westview Invitational on October 17. This tournament represented the first invitational ever hosted by Westview and the first tournament organized by head coach Patrick Johnson and assistant coach Sarah Foster. The pool was manageable, with only 18 entrants in open parliamentary debate, Westview ran smoothly, proving itself as a possible new staple for the early Oregon debate season.

After four preliminary rounds, including a hidden semifinal, the final round was taken by Lincoln’s Hunter Webb & Nate Brunk on the affirmative in a 3-0 decision over Cleveland’s Susan McHarris & Talia Cordova on the negative.

“I thought the round went well, although obviously looking back I would have refuted some things I conceded rather than spending as much time on the formal theory shell I read,” said champion Nate Brunk. “Susan and Talia are both incredible debaters and my partner Hunter and I have definitely lost rounds to them in the past, so winning felt amazing.”

In contrast to most Oregon tournaments, Westview used a combined speech and debate pattern, meaning that competitors who wanted to compete in both may not have been able to do their preferred events. When asked to explain the change, Tournament director Patrick Johnson commented, “This was our trial run at hosting. So my goal was to give as many options to students as possible, hence the mixture of IE/debate for each pattern. Since some only do debate and many are new to this activity in October, it seemed a way to give debaters more than one debate event to explore, including Big Question Debate. Plus it allowed for four preliminary rounds rounds.”

Coming up next on the Oregon circuit, November’s Sprague and Silverton invitationals promise compelling story-lines with pool sizes already breaking Wilson and Westview’s records.