Three Edna seniors: Miley Genett, Kyrstin Nieto and Kyle Zheng, advanced to the UIL Congress State Meet, where they were able to debate and pass legislations in Austin at the Texas Capitol. This was the first year EHS students attended UIL Congress.
Then, Genett and Zheng advanced to Super Congress, placing them among the top 18 contestants in the state of Texas.
As the cherry on top, Zheng made it to the medal stand and earned a silver one for his team and his school.
Their advisor, Mark Ruiz, commented the only sad thing about it, is that they’re seniors and will be moving on after the spring semester.
“I can’t say enough about their work ethic; we set out in September of last year and said we’re going to attend 5A and 6A tournaments, get beaten up, but then set ourselves up with some experience to be ready when Regionals came around,” Ruiz said.
The team went to Katy, Klein, and La Vernia, where they found big competition waiting for them, but it was worth it in the end.
Zheng explained what they encountered in Austin.
“We’d get the dockets a month in advance to prepare our debates, and so in Austin, each chamber had around 18 students, so we acted as representatives for the committee,” he said.
Nieto was able to get one of her legislations on the docket, which they called The Serve Act.
“My legislature was mandating 50 hours of community service as a graduation requirement for all high school and undergraduate students, in order to give back to the community,” Nieto explained. “Because whether citizens have kids in the school system or not, the community is having to fund the public school districts, and so this would be an incentive back to the community, and show more civic engagement in the next generation of students, when it comes to voting and becoming involved more politically and economically.”
Zheng proposed legislation for a federal tax credit for teachers, where all public school teachers, K-12, would receive a $5,000 tax break. The bill was passed in the region, but Genett said his passed in her chamber, but not overall at the state level.
Zheng said he was really excited about his second place, and it surprised him because he didn’t think he would’ve been ranked that high.
“The judges look for competitors who are really involved in their rounds so speeches count, and questioning plays a big role too, on how well you question other representatives, Zheng added.
For Regionals the team had to prepare and research about 20 different pieces of legislature, but for State, it was more like 50. Overall, due to them attending other competitions to prepare, they said they researched about 80 to 100 different topics.
Zheng said being prepared was actually the hardest part, but they’re glad they tried it out in order to have the experience and pass it down to new members for the new year.
Genett said it was her first time going to state for anything, so she went in with wide eyes.
“It was fun just debating and being attentive, and it became easy once you’re in the flow of debating and knowing the terms to keep the arguments going,” she said.
“We did have our precedence, which is the rank we get to speak in, and I sort of stayed in the middle the whole time.”
Nieto has attended state in C/X debate and One-Act Play. “Being there could be nervewracking, I was stuck as the bottom for precedence, so I had to wait for everyone to speak first.
So the first session I only got to speak once, but it was okay because I had a great speech,” she said.
“It was great to know I had the support of my teammates and although we were the ones who went to state, there was a lot in the background because our classmates helped research and we had a lot of practice rounds.”
Zheng nodded. “And we want to add a big thanks to Coach Ruiz and the administration for allowing us to do these kinds of competitions.”
Ruiz said he’s got some good students who will step up and fill the gap. “But we will definitely be looking for some more talent,” he said. “I asked them on the way back from state, ‘did you feel like you would’ve done as well if we hadn’t gotten beaten up?’” He smiled. “It was a resounding no.”
If anyone would like to see the team on display, Edna UIL presents the first annual Speech and Debate Extravaganza on Thursday, April 9, at the EHS auditorium at 6:30 p.m. Everyone is invited to attend and listen to the students debate and hear oral interpretations and extemporaneous speaking.
Follow them on Instagram, under the handle Cowboy_Debate.
Edna UIL presents the first annual Speech and Debate Extravaganza on Thursday, April 9, at the EHS auditorium at 6:30 p.m. Everyone is invited to attend and listen to the students debate and hear oral interpretations and extemporaneous speaking.
