The Village High School Speech & Debate team attended the 23rd Annual Longhorn Classic Invitational tournament. This prestigious tournament, hosted online due to the pandemic, is hosted by The University of Texas at Austin. Hundreds of competitors around the nation competed in various events in both speech and debate from Friday, December 4, to Sunday, December 6. 

The Village School’s very own team competed in Debate Events such as Congressional Debate and Lincoln-Douglas Debate as well as Speech Events like Original Oratory, Program Oral Interpretation, Dramatic Interpretation, and Informative Speaking. 

“UT was an excellent experience,” said sophomore Jay Natarajan, the VHS Lincoln Douglas debate captain. “It allowed us to compete at a high level of debate and enabled us to use all of our prior knowledge to achieve great results!”

Even with a smaller team compared to hundreds of others present, Vikings did not fail to impress. Results were as follows. 

Speech President Aditi Iyer – Quarterfinalist in Original Oratory, Quarterfinalist in Program Oral Interpretation

Speech President Kahani Malhotra – Semifinalist in Original Oratory, Semifinalist in Informative Speaking

Secretary Caroline Hsu – Quarterfinalist in Dramatic Interpretation

Parth Gupta – Semifinalist in Congressional Debate

Lincoln Douglas Debate Captain Regina Blenda – Top 30 speakers

Lincoln Douglas Debate Captain Jay Natarajan – Top 45 speakers