Looking back at the Harvard National Speech and Debate Tournament

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Students visited Cambridge, Mass. Feb. 17-19 to participate in The Harvard National Speech and Debate Tournament. The competition is an international tournament consisting of students all over the world competing in various public address, interpretation and debate events.

Invited participants spent the first day in Boston walking around Quincy Market, sightseeing. They also practiced for the upcoming competition with their coaches. “It was really great to have free time and prepare before our competition,” senior Esther Oyetunji said. (Photos/Cara Xie and Esther Oyetunji)

The next two days were spent in rounds competing. Students competed in their own events, consisting of hundreds of participants. From there, students advanced to the top 60, 48, 24, 12 and, lastly, the top 6 finalists. (Photos/Joelle Denis)

Here are our school’s winners:

Esther Oyetunji – Ketanji Brown Jackson Original Oratory Champion

Kennedy Hack-Juman – Humorous Interpretation 2nd Place Finalist

Medha Balaji – Program Oral Interpretation 3rd Place Finalist

Jaimee Canalejo – Humorous Interpretation 4th Place Finalist

Cristina Alvarez & Saphara Kelegama – Middle School Public Forum Semifinalists (Top 4 of 201)

Shreya is a senior here at American Heritage. Apart from Newspaper, she participates in clubs and extracurriculars such as Key Club, Model UN, YIS, HOSA, PBS and AASA. She loves writing, listening to music, watching TV shows and editing videos. She has been dancing for almost all her life and has a love for business and computer science. She plans on channeling these interests into her future career and exploring them further throughout high school. When she am not reading or rewatching Netflix shows, she is riding her bike or swimming in the pool.