October 29th, 2009
SMHS speech and debate team rack up more wins

The qualifiers at the Ronald Reagan Invitational.

STAFF REPORT

San Marcos High (SMHS) school senior Irene Morse recently won the Ronald Reagan High School Speech Invitational, taking first place in  Foreign Extemporaneous Speaking.

The win qualifies her for the Texas Forensics League State Championship in March 2010. She is last year’s University Interscholastic League (UIL) state champion.

Morse joins fellow senior Kelley Mathis, who qualified for state earlier in the year in congressional debate. Mathis added to her dominant year by taking third place in the event at this tournament. She placed fifth overall in domestic extemporaneous.

The team’s rookie sensation, freshman Frankie Torres, joined partner Henry Finch, a senior, in public forum debate.  They advanced all the way to the finals before losing to the tournament’s championship team.  Their second place finish moves them to eight points overall in their quest for state qualification in that event. They are just two points shy of the required ten points.

Morse and her partner, senior Chris Hall, stand at six points overall in public forum.

The speech and debate team is preparing for the San Antonio MacArthur High School tournament on Nov. 6-7.

The team’s fundraising efforts continue as these young orators eagerly look forward to February, when they will represent San Marcos in the Stanford University Invitational Speech Tournament in California.