Debate Teams Celebrate Seasons

5/15/2024

The middle and upper school debate teams celebrated a year of honors, awards and outstanding performances for Barstow's celebrated signature program.

Based on their season-long performance, students were awarded varsity letters and National Speech and Debate Association (NSDA) degrees of merit students at a celebration on April 30:

Ava Levin, senior: Degree of Outstanding Distinction, the highest degree a student can achieve.
Jayden Sampat, senior, and Tyler Bauman, junior: National Debate Coaches Association Championship qualifiers.
Jayden Sampat, Paranjay Sharma and Ava Levin, seniors: NSDA Academic All-Americans.

Students also voted on year-end policy debate awards, with the following results:

Novice Team of the Year: Charlotte Turner and Sydney Westphal, freshmen.
JV Team of the Year: Aun Hathiari and Rohan Thomas, sophomores.
Varsity Team of the Year: Tyler Bauman and Jayden Sampat.
Squad Person of the Year: Jayden Sampat.

The middle school team celebrated its season on May 2. Students competed in an in-house policy debate tournament judged by varsity students. Students were also given awards in the event of student congress based on their performance at DEBATE-KC league tournaments.

Policy Results
1. Dylan Freiden and Adit Reddy
2. Vaishnav Nair and Akash Tejwani
3. Varen Kolli and Brandon Wilson
4. (tie) AliAkbar Khumri and Zahra Khumri
4. (tie) Hannah Morgan and Ava Ava Hejazi

Policy Speaker Awards
1 Dylan Freiden
2 Akash Tejwani
3 Adit Reddy
4 Brandon Willson
5 Hannah Morgan
6 Varen Kolli

Congress Awards - Season Rankings
1. Adit Reddy
2. AliAkbar Khumri
3. Brandon Wilson
4. (tie) Vaishnav Nair
4. (tie) Akash Tejwani
5. Paddy Cullan
6. Jack Richter
7. (tie) Dylan Freiden
7. Varen Kolli

Season awards as voted on by the students:

Semester 1 Stand Out: AliAkbar Khumri

Semester 2 Stand Out: Vaishnav Nair

Presiding Officer (PO) of the Year: Adit Reddy

Congressperson of the Year: Adit Reddy

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