2015-2016 Speech and Debate

The 2015-2016 Speech and Debate season began the first week of October, and had many successes already including  duo, prose, declamation, extemporaneous, discussion, congress, and poetry. Speech members will compete in a total of 27 tournaments this year. So far in the months of October and November they competed in six tournaments, three were debate tournaments. The Speech and Debate team competes with schools all over Northern Indiana. In the month of October, there were three congress competitions. Nicole Keller, Trent McKenzie, and Jack Garner were awarded with Chamber Champions. In the month of November, there were two speech competitions at Plymouth High School and Elkhart Memorial in which Taylor Drake, Nicole Keller, Jack Garner, Katy Smith, Andrew Haines, Jillian Smith, and Alejandra Diaz participated.

Olivia Wendel said, “I do believe that we have a strong team this year, which is awesome!” Wendel then went on to explain what a typical day looks like for a speech member. She said, “Well, we typically get to the school around 5 a.m., give or take a little, then we arrive at the school of the competition, then we compete and win!”

Mrs. Tyree said, “We have 15 different speech events and five different debate events, so we start with what students like and then go from there trying to make a match between a student and an event.  For example, if a student loves current events, then we would not talk to them about drama or humor, but focus on extemp, discussion, congress, etc. If the student loves to write, then we would look at original oratory or original performance.  So it does take some time to get the student with the correct event for their strengths and talents.”

While it may take some time, Mrs. Tyree said, “It is a great program and a lot of fun!”The Speech and Debate team have competitions every Saturday all year round.

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Novice congress team Photo by Nicole Keller

Swim to be in Good Shape

Any student who loves water and wants to stay in shape for other sports should consider swimming and diving at PHS. Head coach, Mrs. Leanne Senter, said that she “expects about 25 [students] total.” Expect to see some familiar faces in the pool such as junior Lauren Wiegand, senior Brooke Wagner, freshman Bridget Schafer, sophomore Emily Cochern, freshman Alex Vancza, junior Trevor Grimmett, and sophomore Kirkland Hettich.

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Friday Night Football

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By Annie Enders

There are 12 seniors on the varsity team, one including Jack Barron who is the quarterback. He has motivation to tackle the game and help the team win. The Rockies have played six games so far and have won all of them. A few of these games include; Bremen with a score of 39-17, Rochester with a score of 43-0, and Northridge with a score of 35-13. Continue reading