As 2024 comes to a close, Liberty’s Speech and Debate team can rest easy with a year that’s been one for the books. Heavy hitters, like Monnishaa Tambe in Original Oratory, Grisha Yelisetty in Declamation, and Shaurya Mishra in Congressional Debate, have performed very well at several competitions across the state.
That being said, this year has also seen an influx of novice competitors across all categories, such as Divya Acharya, a sophomore at Liberty who competes in the Speech category of Informative Speaking.
“I do Informative, and this is my first year doing it, so I’m just a member of it,” Acharya said.
Considering her recent start, Acharya has done remarkably well, placing 14th out of 29 other competitors at a recent tournament.
“I’m okay with it since it’s my first year doing this event. I knew my speech was good. I think I could work on upgrading my visuals and just making them better as a whole,” she said.
Rebecca Granata, a coach for Speech and Debate, is also very proud of how her team has performed. However, she is also proud of the community that has formed.
“I’m most proud of how my seniors and captains nurture new students, who we call novices. I’m proud of how much they support our novices,” Granata said.
It’s not over for the Liberty Speech and Debate quite yet. January will be a hectic month, with many tournaments. February will have Districts, often referred to as “Littles,” determining which hopeful competitors will be able to make it to the State Finals. If one thing is clear, though, it’s that the Liberty Speech and Debate team has the momentum to succeed even more come 2025.
