Early Thursday morning, 13 Parker students embarked on a four-day trip to Eugene, Oregon, with, among many others, one central goal: establish Parker Debate’s name. Arriving in Portland, Oregon, Thursday evening, the team gave themselves an extra day before the tournament to complete a holistic campus tour of the tournament venue–the University of Oregon–on Friday and thus flew in the day before. Taking advantage of this extra night, Thursday evening was spent indulging in local establishments for dinner in small groups. Among these were Buffalo Wild Wings, IHOP, and more. After a restful night at the Embassy Suites at the heart of Portland, the team began their two-hour car ride through the ravishing state of Oregon, documenting every orange-leaved tree–a seasonal change the students do not encounter at home. Making a pit stop halfway, the team refueled with a meal deemed magnificent and rare for Hawai’i kids, In-N-Out, before arriving in Eugene, Oregon, in what seemed like nowhere near two hours.
Finally arriving in Eugene, the Parker Debate team attended a three-hour campus tour of the University of Oregon (UO), slowly acclimating to and becoming familiar with the university. Lincoln-Douglas debater and Duo Interpretation speech competitor Selah Vigil (‘27) describes her first impressions amid the campus tour: “I thought it was really pretty, and it reminded me of Gilmore Girls.” After the tour, the team took a well-needed siesta before attending a team dinner at McMenamins North Bank, accompanied by the one-and-only Doc. Following dinner, they checked in at the Eugene Best Western Hotel to, theoretically, hit the hay, though many students carried out last-minute preparation for the tournament, like refining cases, finding holes in their teammates' arguments, and more.
Then came Saturday, the first day of the Robert D. Clark at the University of Oregon tournament. Suited up, the team left the hotel bright and early at 7:30 AM, arriving on campus around 7:45. Lincoln-Douglas debater and Duo Interpretation speech competitor Angela McDonald (‘27) explains this anticipatory time: “I felt very nervous but still really excited.” Competing in nine categories, they represented the team in events such as radio speech, extemporaneous speech, duo speech, Lincoln-Douglas (LD) debate, and more. Saturday saw success, but the team would not know officially how they did until break rounds–elimination rounds that take place after preliminary rounds and that only a small number of competitors, proportional to the number of entries, move on to. With four debate rounds and three speech rounds completed, Saturday ended with a visit to Dave’s Hot Chicken.
Finally came Sunday, the day on which students would find out if they moved on to break rounds and, in the case that they did, continue to compete until either, in debate, they lost a round, or, in speech, they did not rank high enough. Overall, seven Parker speech and debate competitors broke. Among them were Soren Fessel (Open Extemporaneous Speech), Angela McDonald (Junior Lincoln-Douglas Debate), Sophia Scholz (Open Radio Speech), Sofia Maia-Williams (Junior LD Debate & Junior Original Oratory), Vincent Galvin (Junior LD, Junior Prose Speech, & Junior Informative Speech), Dahlia Lanclos (Junior Prose Speech), Kenji Wetherell (Junior Informative Speech), and Oscar Amos (Open LD, Open Extemporaneous). After break rounds, the number of competitors narrowed over 2–3 rounds, eventually leading the remaining ones to finals. Parker's finalists included Sofia Maia-Williams, Soren Fessel, Vincent Galvin, Kenji Wetherell, and Oscar Amos. Find the list of medalists below. After this invaluable tournament, the team concluded the trip by driving back to Portland the same night, arriving at the Embassy Suites at different times, all between 9:00 PM and 10:30 PM.
On Monday, after waking up not-so-bright and unfortunately early at 5 AM, Parker Speech and Debate headed to the airport at 6 AM for their flight home. Now comes the hard part: catching up with missed assignments. However, have no doubt, because the team is well aware and emphasizes that school comes before debate! A glimpse inside of the trip with Selah Vigil’s carefully crafted photo dump can be found after the list of medalists.
Selah's Super Special Snapshots:
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