On Saturday, January 24, the STEM high school speech and debate team competed in its tenth tournament of the 2025-26 season at Colorado’s Oldest Tournament held at Mullen HS. The weather was icy, but our team was not. STEM brought 13 students: Amanda Lyn, Avery Richardson, Ash Ambalavanan, Emmett Cumbler, Aaron Dologonos, Widget Taylor, Darshan Satish Kumar, Arya Karthikeya, Hayden Gotto, and Lauren Ard competed in debate; Aidric Peterson, Sophi Bertsch, and Alex Gerali competed in speech. A big Thank you to Jane Kim, Ambal Ambalavanan, and Dale Taylor for serving as parent judges!

This was STEM’s best result of the year for a varsity tournament – we had not one but two tournament champions!

· Aaron Dologonos (10th Grade) went undefeated and took first place overall in Lincoln Douglas Debate.

· Alex Gerali (11th Grade) took first place in each of his four rounds of 5-6 students and took first place overall in US Extemporaneous Speech.

· In addition, Sofia Bertsch (11th grade) made finals and took 6th place in US Extemporaneous Speech, even though it was only her second time ever competing in the event.

Our next tournament is our state championship tournament on February 6-7 at Pueblo Central HS.