Owasso Speech and Debate Invitational
By Dominic Leading Fox
A resurging name in the Oklahoma speech and debate scene, Owasso High School solidified its spot last weekend with its first invitational tournament since 2016.
Schools from all over the state crowded the tables in the Ram Cafe, with some students typing frantically on Chromebooks and some taking rather uncomfortable-looking naps. While this may be a strange sight to a normal bystander, it is all too familiar to the debate scene. For multiple weekends a month, these schools pack into their yellow school buses and travel to whichever school is holding a tournament where they will research, argue, act and cry for the top spot on the bracket.
Owasso Speech and Debate, designed by the team.
This time, it was Owasso High School’s turn.
“Back in like October, I went to a meeting at the Holiday Inn Express where they handed me this huge packet of info if I wanted to do a tournament,” said Owasso’s Speech and Debate coach Allison Dodge. “I read it all, and it had a checklist of things that had to be done, so I just started working my way through [it].”
The process to get a tournament proved rather arduous, but with the help of others, Dodge got things into shape.
“I found other coaches in the area to help me do the…technical parts, and then after that it was just kinda like, hacking my way through sending emails, filling out forms, ordering medals… it was a lot of paperwork,” Dodge recalled.
While everything was properly set to run the invitational, no tournament is run 100% smoothly. To an extent, that’s part of the debate charm.
“I didn't expect everything to run perfectly— and it didn't. But I think it was fine. It seemed pretty accurate to what a normal tournament is like, every tournament kinda has problems,” Dodge pointed out. “Considering that this was like, one of the largest tournaments in the state this year and that it was my first time running it and Owasso’s first time having it in like eight years, it went pretty good!”
Through all the mistakes, Dodge, with the help of the team, the theatre department and other coaches, put on an efficient and memorable invitational.
“[All of the schools] said it was a really good tournament.”
The team hopes to grow from its mistakes this year and put on an even better invitational next year. Keep a lookout for them as they continue to ascend into Owasso’s arsenal of top-tier programs.