{"id":124248,"date":"2022-11-07T07:15:00","date_gmt":"2022-11-07T13:15:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/?p=124248"},"modified":"2022-11-06T16:01:21","modified_gmt":"2022-11-06T22:01:21","slug":"university-of-mississippi-team-wins-debate-tournament","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/university-of-mississippi-team-wins-debate-tournament\/","title":{"rendered":"University of Mississippi Team Wins Debate Tournament"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Warren Debate Union wins at event hosted by Lewis & Clark College<\/em><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Just months after the Ole Miss Rebels<\/strong> won the 2022 College World Series<\/strong> in baseball, another team representing the University of Mississippi<\/strong> has won a national tournament. The university’s Warren Debate Union<\/strong> took first place in the national competition hosted by Lewis & Clark College<\/strong> in Portland, Oregon<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The duo of Katherine Broten<\/strong>, a senior public policy leadership major from Farmington, New Mexico<\/strong>, and Spencer Heitman<\/strong>, of Baton Rouge, Louisiana<\/strong>, finished first overall. Together, they defeated teams representing the College of Idaho, Claremont College<\/strong>, and Lewis & Clark College<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Heitman also was awarded the first-place speaker award, while Broten was acknowledged as the 10th place individual speaker.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“It was a great experience, especially because we got to bring so many first-time debaters along,” Broten said. “It was very exciting to return to in-person debate after three years of online tournaments and be able to represent the university.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The students competed in seven rounds, spanning topics on the United Nations<\/strong>, nuclear energy, artificial intelligence, monetary policy, European politics, ballot initiatives, and even the TV show “Squid Game.” They received No. 1 rankings in six of the rounds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Last year, the WDU reached several final rounds, but never quite made it to the top of the hill,” said Jacob Justice<\/strong>, assistant professor of speech communication in the Department of Writing and Rhetoric. “We are incredibly excited to have shaken that off and won the first in-person tournament we attended this year.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Another WDU team consisting of Clark Etzel<\/strong>, of Russellville, Arkansas<\/strong>, and Ben Oakes<\/strong>, from Madison<\/strong>, also had a strong showing. The duo reached the semifinals as the fifth overall seed at the tournament. Oakes also was recognized as the seventh-place individual speaker.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Other WDU competitors were Jacob Smith<\/strong>, of Lacey, Washington<\/strong>; Ainsley Corwin<\/strong>, of Lake Ozark, Missouri<\/strong>; Jessica Johnson<\/strong>, of Diamondhead<\/strong>; and Gracie Roberts<\/strong>, of Clinton<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“This tournament was also special because it was several up-and-coming debaters’ first in-person tournament,” Justice said. “It was Ainsley, Jessica and Gracie’s first in-person college debate tournament, and they rose to the occasion.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By Edwin B. Smith<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/a>
University of Mississippi students Spencer Heitman (left) and Katherine Broten show off their awards from the national championship debate tournament hosted by Lewis & Clark College. Heitman and Broten, both members of the UM Warren Debate Union, finished first overall in the competition. Submitted photo<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Warren Debate Union wins at event hosted by Lewis & Clark College Just months after the Ole Miss<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":123462,"featured_media":124249,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[17687],"tags":[2300,23197,23195,23193,19343,21204,23191,23190,2299,5,7299,7067,2013,2886,4,5876,23196,23192,655,21362],"class_list":["post-124248","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-university-of-mississippi","tag-baton-rouge","tag-ben-oakes","tag-clark-etzel","tag-college-of-idaho","tag-farmington","tag-jacob-justice","tag-katherine-broten","tag-lewis-clark-college","tag-louisiana","tag-mississippi","tag-new-mexico","tag-ole-miss","tag-ole-miss-rebels","tag-oregon","tag-oxford","tag-portland","tag-russellville","tag-spencer-heitman","tag-university-of-mississippi","tag-warren-debate-union"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/11\/Katie-and-Spencer-750.jpg?fit=750%2C458&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/124248","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/123462"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=124248"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/124248\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/124249"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=124248"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=124248"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=124248"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}