The AHS debate team has been officially reinstated for 2017/18 school year. The effort to bring the team back was spearheaded by AHS history teacher, Christopher Wheatley.

In previous years at AHS, the history department’s staff has lost several teachers making it increasingly difficult to maintain the debate elective. Due to these changes, the debate team was cut during the 2016/17 school year.

“We lost a couple of social studies teachers and they weren’t replaced immediately, so we had to teach the required courses (U.S. History, Civics, etc.) and so the debate elective went away. There wasn’t anyone willing to step up to the plate.” Wheatley said.

This year the AHS debate team is hoping to make themselves widely known throughout the school and the state, and plan on making a strong comeback.

“Our focus is to come to the state tournament with good invitational experiences, to get a lot of new participants, and to help students find their voices.” Wheatley said.

In past years, the AHS debate team has been successful while competing at tournaments throughout the state.

“We have been in elimination rounds of both Policy and Lincoln Douglas debate in 4A and 5A schools. We now compete at the festival level, which is 1A, 2A and 3A schools,” Wheatley said. “Two years ago, Elizabeth de Wetter was a state champion in Lincoln Douglas debate. We have had top five finishes in all but three events at the state tournament, as well as qualifying three students for the national championship tournament.”

Former debate team member, AHS Senior Carter Cheo, believes that the debate team is an important part of the school and can help students with public speaking and confidence.

“I think it was really beneficial. I did the speech portion of it which helped me become a really confident public speaker and I would definitely recommend it.” Cheo said.

A member of the team, AHS Sophomore and Staff Writer for the Skier Scribbler, Tullis Burrows has high hopes for the upcoming season.

“My hope is that we can mold ourselves into the best team we can be and to win some competitions.” Burrows said.