While most students were leaving school on Friday after the first week back from winter break, students from other schools around the midwest were arriving at Westside for the annual Westside Warrior Debate Invitational.

The debate team had been preparing for the yearly tournament since the fall. Head debate coach Dana Christensen explains what the debate team had done to prepare for the event.

“We started preparing for the tournament when we opened up the registration website a couple months ago,” Christensen said. “Other things students helped me do were getting t-shirts, trophies, room lists and contacting building services.”

This year, the invitational hosted 23 schools from five different states, including Nebraska, Missouri, Iowa, South Dakota and Minnesota. The tournament is one of the largest in Nebraska because Westside has a Tournament of Champions (TOC) bid in varsity Policy and varsity Lincoln Douglas debate (two styles of debate). The TOC is the most prestigious debate tournament of high school debate. To qualify, a team must get two bids at designated bid tournaments around the nation. If a team qualifies, they get to attend the TOC in May at the University of Kentucky.

Christensen thinks having the TOC bid at Westside is important to keep the tournament entry numbers high, which in turn creates more profits for the Westside debate team.

“Having the TOC bid increases both the number of teams who are coming, and the geographic diversity of the teams,” Christensen said. “And the more teams that come, the higher entry fees are so it makes it a more profitable event for us.”

Members of the debate team and volunteers did different jobs such as working in the concession stand, running the ballot table and collecting ballots after debate rounds. Since there were five different events going on at once, before the tournament Christensen said it was imperative that everyone worked together to keep the tournament running on time.

“We used every open room in the school,” Christensen said. “So we need volunteers to get debaters to the right rooms, collect ballots after debate rounds, and keeping the concessions stand staffed so we can sell food to people. It’s a giant organizational effort, and all of the students have some part in making sure everything keeps running.”

2013 was the beginning of a new tradition when Christensen began to host a revolutionary speaker at the event. Last year,  Ward Churchill, political activist and author about Native American land rights was featured at the tournament. This year, Christensen invited Ryan Wash to come to the event. Wash won both the National Debate Tournament and the Cross Examination Debate Association’s national tournament in 2013, making him and his partner the first team in history to ever win the two largest collegiate debate tournaments in the same season.

“This year we had a highly successful collegiate debater who came and talked about some of his experiences, and the direction he thinks the community should go,” Christensen said. “I think it’s important for students to have role models in the activity, and to put a face to the authors they’re reading in debate rounds.”

After the awards ceremony, all styles of debate resumed elimination rounds. Public Forum and novice and varsity Lincoln Douglas concluded Saturday evening at the high school. The winner of varsity Lincoln Douglas was Gina Scorpiniti from West Des Moines Valley. The winner of the Public Forum division was Ruchika Khot and Twisha Sabloak from Millard West.

On Sunday, the semifinal and final rounds of varsity Policy debate took place at the Thompson Alumni House on the UNO campus. Since it was a finals bid to the TOC, the semifinals round on Sunday morning was an important round for the final four teams to win. Blaize DePass from Wayzata High School in Plymouth, Minnesota, explains his feelings going into the semifinal round.

“I was confident we could get the bid, but at the same time nervous that I might mess up,” DePass said. “There is always the factor of doubt when you are trying to do something substantial like get a bid. But even if I wouldn’t have bid, my argument means something to me, and I spread my message regardless.”

DePass and his partner, Nikhil Krishnan, won their semifinals round, and debated a team from Barstow, Missouri in the final round, which they won on a 3-0 decision.