Greenhill Debate Students Place Third at Nationals

The Greenhill School Speech and Debate team competed in the National Speech and Debate Associations National Tournament, in Phoenix, Arizona from June 12-16.

The team of Kaden Alibhai ’24, Ameera Amer ’24, Reyna Diamond ’24, Angela Kamgang ’24, and Sherry Zhang ’25 reached the semi-finals and won third place in World Schools Debate after competing in six preliminary rounds and four elimination rounds.

The team of Emily Hu ’24, Sophia Li ’24, Varun Mukund ’25, Natalie Stachowiak ’24, and Jeannette Yang ’24 advanced to elimination rounds and received ninth place in World Schools Debate.

The NSDA National tournament is the largest academic competition in the world with more than 6,000 competitors from 2,000 schools and international entries from Canada, Ghana, China, Mexico, Taiwan, and Singapore competing.

The NSDA also awarded Aaron and Cynthia Timmons the Brother Rene Sterner Lifetime Service Award for decades of service to the NSDA and the broader speech and debate community. Special recognition was given to them for coaching the USA Debate team — the Olympic Team for High School Debate — for the last decade.

Alumni Joshua Timmons ’21 was also honored by being chosen as a final round judge in Prose Interpretation.