St. Pius Sends Two Speech, Debate Teams to National Tourney

The speech and debate team had two teams qualify for the National Forensic League tournament held in Indianapolis in June. This marks the first time since 2006 that St. Pius has had two teams qualify for the event to represent the North Georgia district.

Each year two teams from North Georgia, and four from the state, are selected to participate in the National Forensics League National Championship to be held this year June 10-15. The teams of Keller Sheppard and Katie Mannen and Becca Polzin and Courtney Wesa qualified with their performances at the district championship Feb. 24-25. In addition, the team of Matt Angulo and Sean Fahey will serve as first alternate for the event.

"The team had been preparing the topic on birthright citizenship for the better part of a month and their hard work really paid off," said head coach Sean Hiland. "The team members all knew their talking points extremely well and presented them with an incredible amount of poise and sophistication."

Earlier in the school year, St. Pius was granted charter membership in the National Forensic League (NFL). Charter membership is the highest level of membership in the NFL and reflects sustained commitment to speech and debate education over several years.