Lewis & Clark wins championships across multiple speech/debate formats at home tournament

In the decades that Lewis & Clark has hosted an intercollegiate competition, its speech and debate team has won speech and debate awards in a variety of different formats.

Just not in the same year.

The L&C team won top honors in extemporaneous speaking as well as three different formats of debate (BP, LD, and IPDA) at the 2024 edition of the Steve Hunt Classic, held October 11-13 on the undergraduate campus. It was the first time that the program has contemporaneously won first place in a speech event and three different debate divisions at any tournament in the 130 year history of the program.

The Steve Hunt Classic is one of three designated championship events of the Northwest Forensics Conference, and is one of the largest invitational speech and debate tournaments in the nation. Thirty-three schools attended this year’s tournament, including regional programs such as Whitworth University, Whitman College and Willamette University as well as a nationwide draw of programs from California, Texas, Vermont, Kentucky and Florida.

Riley McGinley (’27) started off the awards cavalcade on Friday night by earning first place in extemporaneous speaking, an event where students are tasked with developing and performing a speech on current events and issues with only thirty minutes of preparation time. Riley was joined in speech honors by Alana O’Grady (’27) who finished in second place in Prose Interpretation, Lewis Eibner (’27) with a fourth place performance in Persuasive Speaking, and Freya Steed (’28) who placed fourth in Junior Persuasive Speaking. O’Grady added to the speech awards haul by placing first in Prose at the Neil Sabin speech tournament, a second speech tournament held the same weekend.

In IPDA debate, another limited preparation event but in a one on one debate style, Lewis & Clark had four of the top fourteen competitors, also a record for the program. Kiana Hall (’26) was the champion in IPDA, winning four elimination rounds against debaters from Boise State University and Weber State University to take the prize. Hall was also honored as the six best individual speaker at the tournament. Zane Emerson (’27) advanced to semifinals and earned a third place speaker award, while McGinley was a quarterfinalist and Eibner an octofinalist.

In British Parliamentary debate, a limited preparation debate event with four two person teams in each round, L&C’s Isabella Moore (’27) and Maltin Tocani (’25) were the grand champions, defeating teams from the Claremont Colleges, Willamette University, and the College of Idaho in the final round. Tocani received honors as the fourth place speaker in the competition while Emily Shem (’25) earned ninth best speaker at the competition.

In Lincoln-Douglas debate, a prepared debate format with a year-long topic, Anne Smith (’25) also made history by winning the Steve Hunt Classic in consecutive years. Smith defeated debaters from Western Kentucky University in both the semifinal and final rounds to retain the championship, with this year’s topic focused on artificial intelligence. Smith was also named the top speaker at the tournament. Ivy Ferdowsian (’28) and Gray Stacy (’28) were quarterfinalists in LD debate, notable as it was the first senior level competition for each student; Stacy and Jayden Steinberg (’28) were honored as the fourth and fifth place speaker.

With all performances combined, Lewis & Clark will now rank first in season-long debate competition when the Northwest Forensics Conference standings are updated later this month.

Director of Speech and Debate Joe Gantt said of the overall team effort, “This was a remarkable week of competition for our squad. We pride ourselves in offering a full service program where students can find their niche, but rarely have we seen each component of the program operating at such a high level at the same time. Outstanding individual performances combined to make something really special happen for the team as a whole. This is a group of which the Lewis & Clark community can really be proud.”

The team will next compete at Pacific University later this month before branching out nationally in early November to tournaments in Illinois, Connecticut and Vermont.