Farwell sophomores take gold in debate contest

There's no arguing about the success of two Farwell sophomores ability to debate.

Courtesy photo: Angela Teachout

Farwell High sophomore Savanna Barksdale, left, and Hunter Hall sophomores were awarded gold medals for winning the Texas Class 1A state cross-examination debate championship last month.

Savanna Barksdale and Hunter Hall earned the school's first Texas state championship gold medals last month.

Barksdale and Hall bested 54 Class 1A teams to win the University Interscholastic cross-examination debate championship March 13 at the Texas state capitol in Austin.

Hall also won fifth best speaker in the state out of 112 contestants.

The two plan to return to the capitol in June for breakfast with Gov. Rick Perry at the governor's mansion, another perk of winning the championship.

Farwell has had a strong debate team that has consistently placed third in the state over the past six years, according to Hall.

"We call it the curse of the third," Hall said. "I told my dad I really wanted to break it this year."

The topic of this year's debate was "The United States government should substantially increase space exploration beyond the earth's mesosphere."

"We argued in favor of the resolution," Hall said. "We argued that mining metals from asteroids is economically valuable for fueling the technological industry and helping us go green."

Barksdale said, "It's crazy how extensively you have to research everything." Barksdale said her preparation for the debate included studying research from IBM and NASA, learning about gravitational forces on Mars, asteroids, the mesosphere and the moon.

"You have to be able to think on your feet, because your opponents get to cross-examine you," Barksdale said. "You have to know everything about everything."

Barksdale said she wasn't interested in debate until Hall asked her to assist him for a day, a year and a half ago. "It was a nightmare," Barksdale said. "It was scary. I didn't know anything. And now we've won state."

Hall said he and Barksdale are goal setters. "We want to win state two more times," he said. "Winning a national tournament is really hard to do — but our goal is to qualify."

The gold medal winners had a team of coaches, including Hall's mother, Angela Teachout, who is the debate team coach, his father, Tra Hall, and sister, Brooke Hall, both experienced debate coaches. Taylor Reeves of Pampa, Texas, also helped coach the team.