STUDENT SPOTLIGHT
What first drew you to speech and debate?
Calista Woo
Anik Chobe
FROM LAST-CHANCE QUALIFIER TO FINAL ROUND STAGE Calista is the 2024 national champion in Lincoln-Douglas Debate from Mountain View High School in Mountain View, CA. Anik is the 2024 second place finalist in Lincoln-Douglas Debate from Archbishop Mitty High School in San Jose, CA.
CALISTA: Like most things in life, I first met speech and debate through my older brother. My first true introduction to speech and debate was a judge training session hosted by the head coach of my team. Of course, my dad was the one being trained, but elevenyear-old me followed along and watched a demo tech Public Forum round. Did I understand anything? Of course not—but I knew I wanted to be there. ANIK: I heard about an afterschool public speaking club when I was in elementary school. I immediately took an interest and joined, and got my first exposure to speech and debate. I eventually started competing at tournaments in seventh grade and have remained in the activity since.
Tell us a little bit more about your Last-Chance Qualifier to National Tournament experience, practicing and competing as friends from different schools.
Calista Woo and Anik Chobe are newly-minted friends and rising seniors who debated each other during the Last-Chance Qualifier back in April and ultimately qualified for Nationals in June. Read on to learn more about their journey to Des Moines this summer!
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ROSTRUM | SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2024 |
CALISTA: In the weeks before Last-Chance, we did practice rounds and topic analysis, observed rounds at state, and collaborated for the first time. I loved practicing with friends from other schools, and I learned a lot about different approaches
to research and case construction. At Last-Chance, Anik and I actually ended up debating against each other in our sixth preliminary round. At that point, we were both undefeated and knew each other’s cases and evidence by heart. We even spent an hour calling before round promising to “have a fun round.” (I ended up losing. In fact, the only ballot I lost at Last-Chance was to Anik!) The day before we flew out [to Des Moines], we had a practice round to finalize all of our preparation and wish each other luck. During that round, we never would have imagined hitting each other exactly a week later, on the final round stage of the Iowa Events Center. I couldn’t have thought of a better opponent to share such a special experience with than the first friend I made in Lincoln-Douglas. ANIK: Prepping with Calista exposed me to arguments I hadn’t thought of and broadened my overall perspective on the topic. We continued to work with each other during the leadup to Nationals, along with others in our district. I don’t think either of us thought, while we were casually doing practice rounds, that we were having the equivalent of a Nationals final round, which is really amazing to think about in retrospect.