PCHS Bulletin – Vimianchan Thach
Published Date – Sept. 9, 2025
With the new school year, the speech and debate club is back in business! With the advisors Alison DePatie and Brianna Lashway, there are many new changes to make the club even more successful than last year.
The 2024-2025 Speech and Debate team held many memories and victories with club members making it to finals and getting awards for their great effort. DePatie describes last year as progress in the right direction compared to previous years, and that with the competitions that they have gone to, she hopes the club can attend more.
With the new year comes changes within the club, and when asked how she will improve the club's functionality, she stated, “To have teacher led activities, because you see how quiet everyone was and how everyone participated? We were able to get through a lot of things.”
For this year’s officer team, DePatie and Lashway have concluded to choose the officers on their own based on participation, teamwork, attendance, and responsibility; believing that this will be the best and most efficient way to choose officers to avoid popularity voting.
Officer candidates will have to get two teacher recommendations and prepare a 3–5-minute memorized speech to showcase why they are good in that role and why they should be selected.
“Lashway and I want to pick the new officer team so that they are participating, coming in, and doing their roles rather than taking over the club,” DePatie explained.
The Speech and Debate club provides many interesting opportunities, such as public speaking, leadership, and critical thinking. This can assist students in every aspect of their school career.
Furthermore, the school’s Speech and Debate club has just joined the National Speech and Debate Association (NSDA).
DePatie hopes to get into enough competitions with the growing club, as it is based on degrees where every competition a student attends, they get a degree. If the club gets at least 50 degrees, it could become a Charter, the highest honor for high schools in the NSDA.
DePatie expressed relief with the addition of Lashway to the advisory board.
"I'm glad Lashway is here, because it is a lot of work for what we want to try to accomplish, so I’m so glad she's here as she is going to help so much,” she said. “I am going to take the lead on debate, and she is going to take the lead on speech, so it's going to be great with her experience. You know, brains, beauty, she’s going to bring it all.”
When asked about the first meeting, DePatie says that she was very happy with the turnout but that the club could use even more members, encouraging more people to join in the regular Thursday meetings.
She continued by saying she and Lashway are very excited about their goals pushing forward, hoping that they could become a charter as they are very excited about becoming a part of NSDA. They believe this club already looks very good on college applications.
There is also a Speech elective offered at Parrish Community High School taught by Courtney Lancaster. The course is intended to be a gateway into the club by teaching the basics of speech and debate.
“My goal with the class is to get kids comfortable with public speaking and the idea of debate in order to allow them to move up into more advanced practices, like the Speech and Debate club.” Lancaster said.
This new year of speech and debate holds many hopeful promises, so students interested in public speaking or becoming a better leader should inquire about joining.