Kissing the Blarney Stone must have worked.
After three LSUS debaters competed in the 28th annual Montgomery Cup in Ireland, Wales and London, those three debaters were part of a stellar performance in LSUS’s competition at Central Arkansas’ Hi-Bear tournament.
Micah Robinson captured the junior varsity tournament title with Addison Jacobsen (semifinalist) and Emily Dowd (octofinalist) in that division.
Robinson and Jacobsen teamed up for a second-place finish in the team portion.
Those three debaters represented LSUS in the 14-day Montgomery Cup, which is an annual debate and cultural exchange tour.
“The (Montgomery Cup) debate style is different than what we normally do, but these kids enjoyed getting to compete and the anxiety with learning a new style,” said LSUS debate coach A.J. Edwards, who has participated in three Montgomery Cups as a coach. “But by the end, we were commenting how quickly they took to it.
“Debate over there is an extracurricular activity, but it’s taught throughout their schools from the time they are young. Some of our kids have only been debating for two years, so to step in and hold your own against kids who have been doing it their whole lives, that’s pretty remarkable and tells you the talent we have.”
On the Montgomery Cup Tour, Robinson and Jacobsen logged a tournament win and a second place in four debates. Dowd also debated her way to win in a different event that didn’t have a tournament structure.
“All three students we took this year had never been out of the country, which is pretty common for us,” Edwards said. “Until debate, two of those three had never been out of the state.
“It’s generally pretty hard for us to go into somebody else’s house and get favorable results (on the Montgomery Cup tour), but we got really favorable results. It’s fun watching them take some of the stuff they learned and use it in our style of debate – they learned so many lessons.”
LSUS competed alongside the University of Central Missouri, the organizers of the tour.
The teams debated at the University of Cork, Trinity University, University College of Dublin and Cardiff University on the tour.
Of course debate was only part of the activities.
Cities visited included Cork, Dublin, Cardiff and London with sites including Blarney Castle, repository of the Book of Kell (ancient text that first proclaimed the Gospel to the Irish more than 2,000 years ago) and the Tower of London and Westminster Abbey.
The group got to take in a little theatre in London as well.
“The craziest thing was that the highlight of the entire trip might be driving through the countryside in Wales,” Edwards said. “The interstate was shut down, and we took the charter bus the back way to Cardiff, which took 6.5 hours instead of three.
“But the kids were in awe of how pretty the scenery was, and they talked about it for two days after.”
LSUS debaters couldn’t have made the trip without support from the LSUS administration, the LSUS Foundation and the Noel Foundation, which provide financial support as well as logistical support for classes missed during the trip.
The rest of the debate team stayed busy though as CJ Longino won the Eddy Shell Tournament at BPCC and as third-place speaker for the team debate portion and runner-up in varsity at Central Arkansas.
Other top finishes include Daniel Davis (runner-up in professional division) as LSUS placed third in individual debate and in the overall debate sweepstakes at Central Arkansas.
