Memorial High School - Reata Yearbook (Houston, TX)

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HECKLERS AND GROANERS IN THE CROWDED EXTEMP DRAW found that they had to reckon with Lane Maxcy if they presisted in their noisy behav- ior. Maxcy was in charge of prelimnary procedure at the draw and was often called upon to keep order. Photo by Bill Montgomery. , SORTING THROUGH THE MANY STACKS OF PAPERWORK required to run C-X Debate, Jerry Simon prepares to match up the over 70 teams for another round in the Memorial Tourney. Because of a shortage of rooms, Simon had to run the event at Spring Branch Junior High. Photo by Bill Montgom- ery. TOTAL SILENCE HAD TO BE MAINTAINED during the Extemp Draw so that clear instructions could be given to the contestants. Boy's Extemp Chairman Bobby Lapin and GirI's Extemp Chairman Elizabeth Harrison conduct the needed chores. Photo by Bill Montgomery. work then! 0 Ithough they may not have been as good as exempt study halls. fun classes still had a special appeal to students . . . one hour of anything from reading Paul Revere's Ride in speech to creating a mask of one's own face in art. Work input was low while I grade output was high. For those who did not care to com- plete a full year of blood, sweat, and tears: drama. band. and homemaking. to name a few. fun quarter courses were offered. lt's nice to be able to - say. 0h. good! l get to go to third period now: l egg do my Latin home- MemoriaI's debaters ' l35

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AT THE BELLAIRE DEBATE TOURNAMENT Brad Glos serman presents evidence in support of his arguments on Health Care. Glosser man advanced to the Octo finals at the event assisted by his partner Jerry Simon. Photo by Bill Montgomery. OVER 200 CONTESTANTS at the Memorial Tourna- ment busily prepared for Extempor ' . Speaking :Each con had to -choose a ffai-r-s-a only 30 rr to prepare for the s Photo by Bill Montg By Bobby Lapin ne of America's most exciting wartime stories, Battle CQ, by Leon Uris, tells in intimate detail of the making of a U.S. Marine. ln the story. a hoard of confused, bewil- dered men are thrust into a situation which calls for only a very short amount of time in which to mold these tyros into a working unit, fit to challenge and vanquish all those who dared to challenge. Such agony is also required for the making of a debate team. The long ordeal will begin sur- rounded in confusion, awkwardness, and most of all despair, and those who will survive will come out in the long run with a richness in under- standing, know edge, logic, and friendness, and quite possibly a loss of richness in the wallet. The journey begins in the infant stage. the novice class of Debate I. On the board are welcomes from the senior debaters foreboding future hazing of the novices. There are some familiar faces, some new ones, and each new- comer has the feeling that a very long journey is to begin here. The novice is informed that the entire country is debating the same topic area this year, and he thinks to himself of how boring it must be to dis- cuss the same topic week after week. He is told that he must begin work immediately on the topic, for he too will be called upon to serve the squad in his first tournament in just a few short weeks. Little does the confused novice realize how very important his next decision is to be, for the recruit must now settle upon who is to be his partner for the year: someone he will work. eat,- live. and even possibly sleep with, depending of ' course on the size of the hotel rooms in the out- of-town tournament areas. With little or noi knowledge whatsoever about his fellow novices,. the novice settles on the kid with a kind faced and semi-intelligent look, and a personality that l 34 Special Report, Memorial's debaters The making of ap debate team, seems to be 0.K. Thus. the tyro has a partner, a general idea of the area of interest, and now he must get down to work. V With the help of some ordered college debate handbooks and the patience of some of the nicer older debaters, the team settles down to write and research the all important affirmative case. They are told that they must isolate one aspect of the general topic area and build around it an eight to ten minute speech stating why this particular area of the topic is vulnerable to harm, why they as a team can solve that harm. and they must then present a plan for the elimination of the harm. They are told that countless, inexhaustible mounds of evidence exist in several nearby libraries, or for the lazy novice with a big wallet. he can buy evidence in handbook form that has already been researched for him by several college-age debaters. ' Hours of research and work. coupled with the agony of trying to find that last: crucial card eventually yield a three or four page document that is to lead the team into at least half of their debate rounds with some stretch of confidence. Alas! The ,work has been completed . . . or so think the self-confident pair. What now lies before the exhausted duo is another round of research. only this time to combat all of the other affirmative cases that they will encounter in the upcoming tournaments. Again, the novices must reach into their pockets for some cash to cover the expenses of additional cards. file drawers. and notebooks. . Finally, the early Autumn weeks having passed. the team can now settle back and marvel at the results of their research. For the team that has worked diligently, there could be anywhere from two to ten file drawers full to the brim with well documented evidence. For the team that occa- Si0I12lly fvund nevuieposits ot.ene1py4vQldd.em!.anicely nolished debate drawer with some cards and a coup e of handbooks. The lazy team will be able to display for their interest only a drawer with nothing inside and a recipe box, probably filled only with recipes. - Evidence aside, the noviis must now concentrate on theory. Emanat- ing from the many, varied theories of the senior debaters come a few con- sistencies. The words inherency, solvency, and causl-link take on new meaningcalong with a few of the squad's favorite expressions suchlas shaft, spi e, turnaround. ' From here on in, the team will become an integral part of the debate team of Memorial, and will share in the fun times of the out of town tour- naments and the not so fun shakedowns by the hierarchy of the squad. They will be sneered at by some of the school, praised at in selected moments by Sigma Gamma, and they will always marvel at the experi- ences they encountered in their evolution from a novice team composed of two scared and confused boys to a composed. confident pair of young men. The making of a debate team is no sculptor's dream. but it is surely every dedicated worker's delight. - 30 - Debate TQMMES

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DEBATE Takin life a little ea ier Prima facie burdens become crucial for A-6 Clan ith the eeriness and secrecy of a Dr. Jekyl-Mr. Hyde transforma- tion, the minds lurking behind the walls of A-6 seek to perform an even more powerful and awe-inspiring change as naive. innocent young men and women are changed from quiet. passive stu- dents to bustling. inquisitive debaters. Almost instantaneously. the victims begin to notice changes. perhaps most evident when their simple vocabularies begin to include such concepts as inherence. comprehensiveness. and sig- nificance. Next. they began to notice an array of file boxes and loose-leaf notebooks springing up around their presence. They noticed that some of the veterans of the trade seemed engulfed in this type of experience. and before they could catch their senses, they too had become one of the mystical cult. Debate is'an organized. strategic discussion of two parties of opposing views. said Coach Jean Boles. We spent around six weeks of intensive training with our novices in order to prepare them for the early tourna- ments. she said. Around 25 novices joined the squad increasing its total to about 60 deba- ters. according to Boles. Some had already spent a part of their summer attending one of the many summer institutes for debate instruction scat- tered about some college campuses in the country. ln debate we dealt with different things every day. ranging from prepa- ration for an upcoming tournament to practice for extemp speeches and ora- tionsf' said Peter Bakken. We dis- cussed debate theory and had practice debates all the time. he said. I Debate ll and lll classes mainly spent most of their class time working on everybody's cases and plotting out strategy against other cases according to Senior Alan Parkans. We had a lot of fun in class, and it helped to' mix such a serious subject with some jokes and gag. he said. Nationwide. the I977-78 Debate Topic. as set by the National Forensic League. was that the Federal Govern- ment should guarantee comprehensive medical care to all citizens in the U.S.. and some of the individual areas of argumentation centered around Medi- caid. Emergency Medical Services. X- Rays. and Wealth Neutral Services. Senior John Landa said. I really liked having the health care topic becausell am considering studying medicine in college. and this year really helped me learn quite a bit. Perhaps the main goal of the deba- ters every year was to qualify for the coveted state tournament held at Bay- lor University every Spring by doing well at an earlier NPL tournament dur- ing the year. Memorial sent one of the largest delegations it ever did this year as the teams of John Lee. Jim Blohm. Brad Glosserman. Jerry Simon. Alan Parkans. David Griffith. John Landa. Bobby Lapin. and Tim Purcell. Will Winsauer all attended the state tourney in the Cross- Examination debate divisions. Individual events also played a big part in the debate experience. according to Senior Jay Gross. Gross said that partici- pating in other events helped keep stu- dents aware and gave them practice for public speaking in later life. The debaters also sponsored a football team that defeated the once-champion Band Team and then lost a couple of close games to the Wranglers. Don McBirney discouraged those who thought that only certain people could become good debaters. He said. lf more people would really take a good look at debate. they would see how much fun and rewarding the whole experience really was. - 30 - Y Bobbi' Lapin MEMBERS OF THE DEBATE TEAM ARE, TOP ROW: Bobby Lapin, Bob Abib, Todd Carpenter, Jorge Cooper, Don McBirney, Tom Schomburg, Jerry Simon, Jeff Wigley, Hugh Howerton, Mike Perkins, Jay Gross, John Harrison, Chrys Yeargain, John Lee, Steve Reynolds, Steve Shatto, Kim Morris, Will Winsauer, Shannon Tucker, Brad Glosserman, Jim Biohm, Jay Munisteri. BOTTOM ROW: Kyra Butchko, Edgar Ferguson, Linda Ong, Greg Corri- ere, Jeff Stroud, Karen Forsythe, Ann Uhrbroek, John Eubank, Peter Bakken. i 136 ' Debate - Depth design ln' Sz4.r11n.lr1i1c'liini.