The Grand County High School Debate Team took second place at the Central Utah Speech and Debate Circuit’s final tournament at Manti High School on Saturday, Feb. 3.
In foreign extemporaneous speaking, senior Grace Osusky placed first, junior Kai Wainer placed second and senior Caylee Stroder placed fourth. Sophomore Diego Winn tied for first in impromptu speaking.
In the Lincoln-Douglas debate, Grand County swept the top three spots, with placing determined only by speaker points. Junior Phillip Geiser placed first, gaining 30 out of 30 speaker points in all of his rounds. Caylee Stroder placed second, trailing only two-thirds of a speaker point behind Geiser’s perfect average. Osusky placed third, only a speaker point away from Stroder’s average. Senior Aidan Guzman-Newton placed fifth in Lincoln-Douglas.
In national extemporaneous speaking, Geiser placed second and sophomore Ty Martinez placed fourth. Martinez also placed fifth in congress, with Winn placing sixth.
Sophomores Miranda Corbin and Jaidyn Thomas placed fourth in the public forum debate event, with Wainer and her partner, senior Cody Gatlin, placing second.
Team awards were also given out for the entire circuit, which consisted of four tournaments throughout the year. Grand placed second despite missing one whole tournament due to its participation in a competition at Arizona State University.
The team will compete at the Region 15 tournament on Tuesday, Feb. 20, which will be held at Richfield High School. It also plans to compete at the national qualifying tournament in early March and the 3A state tournament in mid-March.
