This year’s Speech and Debate team shows lots of pride and determination, led by President Jack Beery, and captains Mirabai Munton and Pranav Battu.
Beery has been a part of speech and debate for the past three years. Beery has lots of responsibilities as the President of speech and debate, one of his biggest responsibilities includes the coordination of team efforts and events between Mrs. Wright and Mr. Shepard, the coach and director of the team.
“The team is very enthusiastic and very happy about competing, more so than last year,” Beery said. “We have a new coach now, who’s also very enthusiastic.”
Munton is the oral interp captain for the Plano Speech team. Munton has been a part of speech and debate for six years, going all the way back to when she was in 7th grade. Munton has spent many long days at speech tournaments.
“Usually it’s about 30-40 minutes away, so we kind of have to meet outside of B Building at like 5:30-6 in the morning, and then we drive to the tournament all together,” Munton said. “Once we get there, we start doing warmups, then everyone heads to their different rounds, and we kind of just keep competing throughout the day, and usually the day ends around 9 or 10 pm.”
Debate Captain, Battu, shows lots of passion and excitement about this year’s team. Battu, who started speech and debate as a freshman, joined the team as a hobby, but it has since turned into a passion of his. There are multiple different types of debates at a tournament. A Public Form, or PF Debate, is a four-round debate with two teams of two people debating over a set topic over the course of two or so months. Lincoln-Douglas debates are similar to PF Debates, but, instead of teams of two people, it is a one-on-one debate. Battu normally competes in Congressional debates, also known as Congress. This type of debate consists of thirty different pieces of legislation that are debated over the course of a semester.
“I joined speech and debate because I wasn’t really that strong of a public speaker, but I feel like it improved my confidence so much and I definitely got better over time,” Battu said.
