Roosevelt High School Scores a Debate “Trifecta” in 2014
The Roosevelt Roughriders after winning the All Iowa Speech & Debate Championships in Iowa City.
If this keeps up, the Roosevelt Speech and Debate program under coach Harry Strong is going to rank alongside the UCLA Bruins basketball teams under John Wooden or the Iowa Hawkeye wrestling teams under Dan Gable in terms of being a dynasty in their disciplines.
The All Iowa Finals in Speech and Debate were hosted by the University of Iowa this past weekend.
Roosevelt won both the Speech and the Debate Championships titles at the event which, combined with their IHSSA State Debate Tournament victory in January, completes an unprecedented “trifecta” for the Roughriders this year.
Top individual performances by the Roughriders at the All Iowa Speech and Debate Championship include:
All Iowa Finals Individual Champions from Roosevelt
- Murphy Burke/Lily Nellans/Elena Hildebrandt and Andy Anderson (Public Forum), Sr/Sr/Jr/So
- Luke Theuma (Congress), Sr
- Lily Nellans (Original Oratory), Sr
- Murphy Burke (Dramatic Interp), Sr
- Lily Nellans (Foreign Extemp), Sr
- Max Pilcher (Spontaneous), Sr
- Max Pilcher (Domestic Extemp), Sr
- Claire Wallace (Expository-Experimental Event), Fr
Runner-Up Finishers from Roosevelt
- Marlee Rutledge (Lit Program), So
- Jacob Thompson (Spontaneous), Fr
- Murphy Burke (Original Oratory), Sr
- Claire Yocom (Expository), Sr
- Reid Wade (2nd best Lincoln Douglas Speaker), Sr
Congratulations, again, to all of team members along with Head Coach Harry Strong, Asst. Head Coach Nathan Fredericks, Coach Billy Strong, Coach Harrison Hayward, Speech Coach Kelly Lawler who make the program Iowa’s best and place it among the nation’s elite.
