The speech and debate team recently honored three seniors with a special night hosted and planned by co-presidents junior Devika Nair and junior Sanyukta Ravishankar. Seniors Anthony Luo, Jet Tsang and Anagha Vitaldevara received recognition and praise on April 29 for their accomplishments in the activity.
Each has earned numerous awards in their careers. Luo and Tsang were partners in Public Forum debate, a two-person per team debate format and were ranked among the top 20 teams in the nation at their peak. Vitaldevara was honored as one of the top 15 speakers nationally in the Dramatic Interpretation speech event during her junior year.
“Speech for me is a way to tell not only the story of my own struggles, but also the stories of people that don’t otherwise get to be heard,” Vitaldevara said.
To celebrate the seniors, the event came with plenty of food. The team catered food from BJ’s Restaurant and Brewhouse as part of a team fundraiser.
During the night, students gave speeches to recall the impact the seniors had on the program, and remember the traditions the students formed together over the years.
Of the many traditions developed in the program, one of Vitaldevara’s favorites was to call alumni from the program for advice before elimination rounds.“[It helped] just to calm down and feel safe,” Vitaldevara said.
Near the end of the banquet, the entire team gave a shout-out to the parents who helped organize and plan the event and helped keep the team running over the years.
Although Luo, Tsang and Vitaldevara are going to schools very far from California, they are still planning on staying connected to the program. Luo will attend Harvard, Tsang will go to Boston College and Vitaldevara is going to University College London.
Luo and Tsang will help host a summer camp introducing debate to elementary and middle schoolers, and Vitaldevara plans to help on the speech side by coming back to help coach freshmen.
Vitaldevara appreciated how the senior night event allowed her to socialize with the people she’ll leave behind after graduation.
“My favorite part was hanging out with everyone because I won’t have the chance to compete with most of them ever again,” Vitaldevara said. “Just being around them and talking to them about our memories this season was really nice.”
The team has wrapped up all of its regular season tournaments, but some members are still preparing for two of the major national tournaments: the National Catholic Forensic League Grand Nationals on May 27 in Washington, D.C., and the National Speech and Debate Association’s national tournament in Richmond, Va., on June 13.
