Speech and Debate States 2025 Recap

On April 4th, 2025, Parker's Debate team traveled to Kamehameha High School in Oahu for the Hawaii State Debate Tournament. Roughly 9 people compete in categories such as Novice-Lincoln Douglas (NLD), Champion-Lincoln Douglas (CLD), Beginning Public Forum (BPF), and Advanced Public Forum (APF).

Fortunately, we had three debaters break and one finalist who will be competing at the National Speech and Debate tournament this summer! 

Kenji Wetherall (‘29) broke in NLD to quarter-finals, Noah Nikolai (‘25) broke in CLD to quarter-finals, and Oscar Amos (‘26) broke in CLD to finals, won, and became our state champion of Hawaii in CLD. He will compete at the National Speech and Debate Tournament in June.

Last weekend, on April 12th, 2025, our Speech team attended the Hawaii State Speech tournament at Punahou High School in Oahu. About 17 competitors competed in categories such as Program Oral Interpretation (POI), Dramatic Interpretation (DI), Duo Interpretation (DUO), International Extemporaneous (IX), U.S Extemporaneous (USX), and Original Oratory (OO).

In DUO, Liam and Gibson (‘25) broke to the finals, making 2nd in the category, opening a gateway to the National Speech and Debate tournament during the summer. 

In POI, we had 3 competitors break through to the semi-finals and finals. Lucy Peterson (‘28) with 4th place, Adalyn Ballard (‘26) with 3rd place, and Dahlia Lanclos (‘25) making it into the finals with 2nd place. She will compete at the National Speech and Debate Tournament in June.

Lastly, in IX, Noah Nikolai (‘25) made it to the semi-finals and ended up with 3rd place!

Congratulations to all competitors in the Hawaii State Speech and Debate Tournament. Good luck to those who have made it to the National Speech and Debate Tournament this summer!