On April 16 and 17, Sarah Tomkinson and Robert Bortins were a team competing in the NCHE Statewide debate in Wilmington, NC along with Emily Morales and Garland West. The debate resolution was:

Resolved: "The U.S. should substantially change the federal campaign finance laws."

Both teams debated 4 times on Friday. The two teams continued to compete Saturday morning. Both made the cut to the final 8 teams. There were originally 10 teams. Garland and Emily won and went on to the final four. They again won and went on to the finals where they were defeated.

At that point we got to see the judges score cards for the first time. Garland and Emily never lost until the last round. The finalists that are going on to Nationals actually lost some rounds but won the last one. Garland and Emily may still go to nationals. We'll know in a few weeks. So one of our teams actually had the most wins throughout the competition but came in 2nd place.

There were also individual awards given for the competition. Emily received 1st, Sarah 3rd and Garland 4th. Robert and Sarah received the highest points on 4 of their 7 debates. Our students were so successful because they were the only teams actually practicing debating on a regular basis through Classical Conversations. We look forward to sending more teams to next year's competition. All the students want to return next year and wish they had started debating earlier in their schooling.