West Hosts Speech and Debate Tournament

Friday and Saturday, January 13-14, the Kanellis Speech and Debate tournament was held at West for the eighteenth time. Students from twenty schools across Iowa came to compete in different speaking events.

This year, West’s Audrey Hopewell ’15 and Edward Yao ’15 were the novice policy debate champions after 8 rounds and roughly 15 total hours of debating. Layla Siddig ’15 was also the top speaker for novice policy debaters.

“Kanellis was fun, because we got to debate against people from Iowa,” Siddig said.

Other events such as humorous interpretation, dramatic interpretation, and original oratory were competed in.

An estimated 150 people were in attendance, including students as well as coaches.  

The Kanellis tournament is named after David Kanellis, in honor of his achievements and commitment when he was West High’s debate coach. He taught debate to students attending West for over twenty years.

 “It was a nice change to be able to get into intellectual clashes with the best and brightest from the Midwest. Unfortunately, I lost most of them,” said Adam Millers ’12.