ABOVE: Fairmont High School's debate team at a tournament at Mankato East High School. Back row, from left: Clark Hazard, Kaylee Nelson, Levi Loughmiller, Bel Lutterman, Leon Yang, Dominick Lund-May, Isaac Thomas. Front row, from left: Norah Heille, Amanda Poetter, Andrew Haefner, Evie Folkerts, Hailey McConnell, Mauel Rojo

FAIRMONT– Fairmont High School’s debate team is in the middle of its sixth season. Over those years, the team has grown from two students to 18 students.

“It’s seen a pretty steady growth,” said Erik Walker, the team’s coach.

Walker revived the team, which had laid dormant for several decades, in 2017. He himself had done debate as a high school student and even participated at the college level. After starting at Fairmont High School, he made a pitch to start up and lead the team here.

This year, he’s joined by Lara Ellis, a social studies teacher new to the Fairmont Area School District. While Ellis has no experience herself with debate, she said that Walker had spoken to her about the connection that can exist between social studies and debate.

“That was the big pull for me. I knew students who would really enjoy doing something like this,” she said.

Debate is open for students grades 7 through 12. The team started with congressional debate, which it did for two years before transitioning to classical debate or policy debate.

Each season the team gets two topics it must debate. This year’s includes: “The use and possession of all drugs for personal use should be decriminalized for adults in the U.S,” and “The U.S. federal government should break up big tech companies by strengthening and enforcing anti-trust legislation.”

Students on the team explained that they don’t need to believe a topic themselves, but be able to argue for or against it, which they pair up and do in groups of two.

“You have to do both side either way. If you agree with one side or the other, you get to argue your own beliefs for the first half and argue against them in the second,” Walker said.

The team practices four evenings a week and prepares for its tournaments by researching the topics, gathering evidence, conversing and developing good debate skills.

“If they’re in PSEO classes, we encourage them use their college libraries because they have access to more scholarly articles that will be harder for their opponents to find,” Walker said.

So far the team has participated in three tournaments and has experienced the winningest season of the last six years.

“All three of our divisions had a team with a winning record this last week which is the best in team history,” said Dominick Lund-May, a junior on the team.

Walker added that at the first tournament a team got fourth place in junior varsity and at

the second tournament a team got ninth place in varsity and at the third tournament a team got seventh place in varsity.

“Beyond that, you get recognized whenever you get a winning record, and we’ve had six,” Walker said.

The vast majority of the teams Fairmont competes against are in the metro area.

“Most tournaments have 14 schools. The only schools outside the metro are us, Mankato East and Jordan, which is a new team this year,” Walker said.

While Fairmont may not be the smallest district that competes, it is the most rural district and has the farthest drive for any tournament.

Walker’s hope is that districts nearer to Fairmont will start their own debate teams. He said he regularly talks to other coaches at conferences and tournaments to try to get them to double down on their debate and speech programs.

It’s not a requirement that students are in both speech and debate, but there is noticeable overlap, especially on Fairmont’s team.

“Not all speech kids are in debate, but almost every single debate kid is in speech,” said Andrew Haefner, a senior student in both debate and speech.

“If they’re in both, they’re members of the National Speech and Debate Association. It builds the same or similar skills that transfers between the two so if you’re good in one, you’ll likely be good in a portion of the other,” Walker said.

Some students on the team shared what they like about debate and what they believe the benefits of it are.

Amanda Poetter, a senior student, noted that debate provides a very inviting environment. Haefner added that all of the members are close to each other and have strong communication between them.

Bel Lutterman, a sophomore on the team, said she enjoys the diversity of people they see participating in tournaments. She said some are there to have fun and build skills while others are more competitive.

“It helps with improving a lot of knowledge about things going on in the United States and world,” said Haefner.

Lund-May added that debate not only helps build essential public speaking skills but also teaches students how to argue using evidence and reasoning. However, he added that debate isn’t is serious as it sounds on the surface. He said at times there’s even avenues for humor.

“You can do well in debate no matter what skill level you are, but it’s always nice to do better. Generally it’s very friendly competition. No one’s out to get you… everyone is on a very level playing field working hard to do better,” he said.

However, it was pointed out that debate can be very humbling, especially when a team is up against another with more experience.

“Facing those teams for your first time, you understand there are levels to everything,” Lund-May said.

As a first year coach, Ellis said she’s been impressed by what students can accomplish, even at the novice stage.

There are four tournaments left in this season, one of which will be virtual and one that will serve as the state tournament. Debate doesn’t qualify individuals for the state tournament like other activities, but there are entry caps.