The Wood River High School debate team continues to excel. The team captured a third place victory at the Century debate tournament held Dec. 3 and 4 in Pocatello. Tim Neville, the debate coach, led the squad to win a collection of debate and speech awards.
Policy debaters Alex Mallea and John David Davidson finished in second place in the junior varsity level competition. Leslie Riemman and Michael Dale earned third place. At the novice policy debate level, three Wood River High teams qualified for the quarter final round. The quarter finalist teams included Kristen Cole and Alex Abel, Johnny Dilley and Hunter Scarborough, and Mark Pederson and Desiree Peters.
In the Lincoln Douglas debate category, varsity debater Reinet Behncke earned third place, junior varsity member Max Kessler took second place and novice debater Dexter Gannon won second place.
Students also excelled in the speech competition. Hillary Elmore placed second in the original oratory speech category. In the expository speech competition, Behncke won second place, followed by Jared Stoltzfus in third place.
Additional speech competition finalists included Pederson, Kessler, Riemman and Mallea.
During the student congress competition, G.T. Trenton earned third place in the congress and third place for his role as presiding officer of the congress. Wood River High parent Pauline Behncke facilitated the session of congress.
Other Wood River High participants included Kyle Cole, Jaron Sheffield, Scott Krankkala, Aaron Elfering, Nick Evans, Hailey Tucker, Ethan Hall, Kam Hairston and John Babcock.
Tim Neville
