From October 16 to 19, Teo Everts ’26, Shaye Lee ’26, and Andrew Roraback ’27 traveled to Portland, Maine to represent the school at the International Independent Schools Public Speaking Competition (IISPSC).
IISPSC draws students primarily from Canada and the United States, along with participants from several other countries. This year’s tournament brought together 118 students from 37 schools in six nations.
The tournament consisted of two rounds and featured a variety of events, including parliamentary debate, extemporaneous speaking, after-dinner, and persuasive speaking. Lee, Everts, and Roraback each made the finals in at least one event. Roraback earned first place speaker for extemporaneous speaking, which gives students 30 minutes to prepare a speech on a randomly assigned current event. He said, “Extemporaneous speaking was challenging, since I had never done it before. I really enjoyed it, though, and was able to adapt quickly. Other than that, the experience was fantastic.”
Everts and Lee qualified for the parliamentary debate finals, with Everts earning second place overall speaker in that category. Everts also qualified for the impromptu speaking finals, where he placed fourth. “I’m proud that we put our best foot forward and represented Hotchkiss well while still managing to have a good time,” said Everts.
Preparation for the IISPSC is quite different from the speech and debate team’s usual tournaments. Most fall events are parliamentary debates. Coach Thomas Fisher and advanced students prioritized helping novices prepare and gain experience debating this fall.
For IISPSC, students write and prepare speeches for events such as after-dinner and persuasive speaking and practice them in advance. The students selected for internationals are therefore typically the most experienced debaters.
Ideally, students prepare these speeches over the summer, but in practice, most continue to work on them during the first months of the school year. Dr. Fisher said, “I’m an affiliate at Teo’s dorm, so he would come by the common room and pitch ideas for his persuasive speech. Shaye would also share topics for her after-dinner speech to get my feedback on them. Impromptu speeches are especially enjoyable to watch, because students can be very creative with their speeches. I’m happy to see everyone finding something they enjoy at debate practices.”
The team meets every Tuesday and Thursday from 6:30-7:30 p.m. “It felt amazing to represent Hotchkiss on such an important stage, but I don’t want the team’s only goal to be producing impressive individual results. Debate club should be a fun and welcoming community that people look forward to joining and enjoy being part of,” said Everts.
The school also had a strong showing at past tournaments this fall. Connor Gardner ’28 and Asher Blake ’28 placed second overall team at the St. Sebastian’s Debate Tournament, a novice-only event, with Gardner earning second place speaker.
Luis Guerra ’28 and Tracy Pham ’28 also placed second as a novice pair at the Choate Invitational Debate Tournament. Guerra said, “The tournament is a great place to get feedback on the way you argue. Overall, I learned a lot about the organization of my argument and how I should pose counterclaims better.”
The team looks forward to upcoming Debating Association of New England Independent Schools (DANEIS) competitions, including a home tournament on January 11, followed by tournaments at Kingswood-Oxford on February 1, St. Sebastian’s on February 22, and Hopkins on March 1.
Dr. Fisher said, “I’m optimistic about the program this year. It’s a matter of finding time and opportunities for new people, because I really believe in spreading out tournament participation across all skill levels. In the long run, this helps the team grow as a whole.”
Is this the level of paragraph separation you were looking for? If so, I can apply this format to any future text you provide.
