Daniel Garber Wins 2009 Voices Round Robin

Catherine Tarsney Wins Voices Educational Forum

SAN JOSE, Cali. — “Congratulations to all those who gave up a weekend of their Spring Holiday to compete in the Voices Foundation’s annual Round Robin,” announced Tim Case this weekend. “It was a great two days of competition and TOC prep.” In the end, Mountain View High School’s Daniel Garber defeated St. Louis Park High School’s Catherine Tarsney on a 3-2 decision to be crowned champion.

This is Daniel’s second Voices title.

Daniel is coached by Eric Palmer, Stephen Hess, and Alex Smith; Catherine is coached by Christian Tarsney, Nick Tourville, and Jason Zhou.

Before the final round, the tournament hosted an educational “problem-posing” seminar where the top two debaters from each pod were invited to participate in a forum on the topic. The student Panelists included Mountain View’s Daniel Garber, Desert Vista’s Xi Lin, Ridge’s Alan Tong, and St. Louis Park’s Catherine Tarsney. These four students participated in a discussion moderated by a panel of debate educators that focused on some of the central philosophical and theoretical foundations of the topic as well as a discussion on the future direction of the activity. Students in the audience (competitors and crowd members) also had the opportunity to ask follow-up questions regarding the panelist’s responses.

The two central questions asked where:

1. If you had the opportunity to sit on the wording committee, what about the current resolution would you change and why?

2. What do you see as the proper future for Lincoln Douglas debate? Should there be a meta-standard for how judges make their decision or are specific paradigms preferable? What would the ideal debate round consist of in your eyes?

This format was designed to challenge the most “successful” debaters at the tournament to defend their understanding of the whole topic and its intricacies as well as demonstrate an understanding of their role in LD and in what direction they would like the activity to head. Since debate rounds tend to eliminate any mutual interaction “during the round” between competitors and judges, the Voices Educational Forum attempted to break this dichotomy by having an open forum where judges and audience members asked questions of the student panelists, and the panelists had the opportunity to ask questions of the audience as well.

After a very lively and interesting discussion, Catherine Tarsney of St. Louis Park was crowned the first Voices Foundation Educational Forum Champion.

The panel of Dan Meyers, Wesley Craven, Adam Nelson, and Ryan Lawrence was evenly divided between Daniel Garber and Catherine Tarsney, leaving the deciding vote to the audience. On a six (Tarsney) to five (Garber) to five (Tong) to two (Lin) decision, the audience voted for Catherine.

LINCOLN-DOUGLAS DEBATE

TWEEDLE DEE
Archer School for Girls (CA) — Laura Bomes
Desert Vista High School (AZ) — Xi Lin
The Meadows School (NV) — Adrienne Keamy
Mountain View High School (CA) — Daniel Garber
Palo Alto High School (CA) — Avi Arfin
Rancho Bernardo High School (CA) — Cameron Baghai
South Eugene High School (OR) — Ben Schifberg

TWEEDLE DUM
Anderson High School (TX) — Madeline Vuong
Harvard-Westlake School (CA) — Sean Nadel
Los Altos High School (CA) — Jing Wang
Mountain View High School (CA) — Daniel Khalessi
Ridge High School (NJ) — Alan Tong
St. Louis Park High School (MN) — Catherine Tarsney
Torrey Pines High School (CA) — Ilya Gaidarov

SEMIS
(1TDee) Mountain View DG def. (2TDum) Ridge AT (Alan Tong)
3-2 (*Ryan Lawrence, *Ashan Peiris, Corbin Cass, Christian Tarsney, Lily Sadaat)
(1TDum) St. Louis Park CT def. (2TDee) Desert Vista XL (Xi Lin)
3-2 (*Greg Miaskiewicz, *Charlie Furman, Dan Meyers, Wesley Craven, Daniel Sheehan)

FINALS
(1TDee) Mountain View DG def. (1TDum) St. Louis Park CT (Catherine Tarsney)
(*Jim Schultz, *Dan Meyers, Ryan Lawrence, Adam Nelson, Students [5-2: *Bomes, *Keamy, Arfin, Tong, Lin, Vuong, Baghai])

—
TOP SPEAKERS
1. Catherine Tarsney — St. Louis Park High School (MN)
2. Daniel Garber — Mountain View High School (CA)
3. Alan Tong — Ridge High School (NJ)

—
INTERPOD CHALLENGE

In an attempt to provide as many rounds for the competitors as possible, the tournament instituted the Interpod Challenge. Because there was an odd number of competitors in each pod, every round the byes from each pod competed in a series of debates. After the first day, the competition was tied, leaving the Challenge up to the final debate between Mountain View’s Daniel Khalessi and Rancho Bernardo’s Cameron Baghai. In the end, Cameron won and the Tweedle Dee pod emerged victorious winning two chocolate rabbits and a Voices T-shirt, “though I felt pity later on,” Tim Case confessed, “and gave T-shirts to everyone.”

Rd 1 – Meadows AK vs Ridge AT – Winner: Meadows AK (Tweedle Dee)
Rd 2 – Desert Vista XL vs Torrey Pines IG – Winner: Torrey Pines IG (Tweedle Dum)
Rd 3 – South Eugene BS vs Anderson MV – Winner: South Eugene BS (Tweedle Dee)
Rd 4 – Archer LB vs St. Louis Park CT – Winner: Archer LB (Tweedle Dee)
Rd 5 – Palo Alto AA vs Los Altos JW – Winner: Los Altos JW (Tweedle Dum)
Rd 6 – Mountain View DG vs Harvard-Westlake SN – Winner: Harvard-Westlake SN (Tweedle Dum)
Rd 7 – Rancho Bernardo CB vs Mountain View DK – Winner: Rancho Bernardo CB (Tweedle Dee)

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