Going Out With a Bang!

Hawk Tawk’s regular season came to a close on Friday and Saturday with the WIAA State Debate Tournament at Gonzaga University. Three CHS students, Baylee Easterday, Trevor Schmitt, and Linh Truong, competed in Congressional Debate. Eric Harrod and Malene Garcia were slated to compete in Public Forum debate, but when Malene took ill on Thursday, we were unable to find a replacement. We brought Eric along, hoping that he would be allowed to compete solo, but it was not to be.

I really want to tell you all how great Eric was about it. He turned his efforts to helping his teammates with research, and he gets a lot of credit for his valuable help.

That said, after nine hours of competition on Friday, both Baylee and Trevor made the cut from 60 to 21 for Super Congress on Saturday. Their combined efforts won us the third-place team trophy for Congress, and Baylee finished third individually.

Baylee is also the 2018 recipient of the Erik Helppie award, named in memory of an Interlake student. It recognizes a senior who has had outstanding success, but is also a leader on the team and who serves the community. She and I both had to be interviewed by the panel for about 20 minutes each. Baylee claims that what sealed the deal was when they asked her about her relationship with her coach and she told them about how she stole mashed potatoes from my plate at dinner before State Speech! Mr. Koestner, himself a past Washington debater, said that this is an even higher honor than being a state champion. You will see the traveling trophy—a giant silver bowl—in our trophy case after I get it engraved and buy some silver polish. Baylee received a miniature copy of the bowl and a generous scholarship check.

That’s it for the regular season. Thank you all for your encouragement and for your recognition of these amazing students. I have never had a group or a year like this. It’s been one heck of a ride!