After traveling to such places as Houston, Dallas, Corpus Christi and Lawton, Oklahoma for competitions this year, the Ranger College Speech & Debate Team earned the right to face an even bigger challenge in April. The team will travel to Costa Mesa, California. take part in the Phi Rho Pi National Tournament on April 4-9. At the meet, the RC team will compete against more than 60 other junior college programs from through the U.S. colleges.
“It’s not really about our team, it’s about representing the entire Ranger College community,” said second-year coach Kevin Daily. “With the success of our basketball team this year making it to Nationals and the Final Four, it’s brought a lot of positive attention to our school and area and this accomplishment of ours, just adds to that momentum.”The RC Speech and Debate team will have six students compete in both Debate and individual events such as Poetry, Impromptu Speaking and Duo. There is also a group event called Interpreter’s Theatre, a 25-minute ‘mini-play’ in which all of the students will be performing.
Members of the RC Speech and Debtate team include Emily Willey (Wills Point, Texas), Tracy Martinez (Crosby, Texas), Conner Motley (Ranger, Texas), Peyton Donahoo (Brownwood, Texas), Tyler Brooks (Woodson, Texas) and Mason Thayer (Eastland, Texas).
“This year, we were able to add coach John Mikolajcik to the team and he’s brought all of his past success in speech & debate, which has allowed us to do things we weren’t able to do last year, like Interpreter’s Theatre, and it’s really improved our program here,” said Daily.
All six students will be graduating in May and heading to four-year universities.
“Our overall team GPA is 3.6, so we’ve got a smart team and we’re looking forward to doing our ‘Best out West,’” added Daily.
Pictured above are members of the Ranger College Speech and Debate team which qualified to compete in the Phi Rho Pi National Tournament in Costa Mesa, California recently. Members of the team are (front row, left to right) Emily Willey, Tracy Martinez, Conner Motley, Peyton Donahoo, (back row) coach Kevin Daily, Tyler Brooks, Mason Thayer and coach John Mikolajcik.
