Thanks to my friend and colleague Gitartha Pathak, whose daughter is a student at Plano East Senior High, I had the opportunity to be a judge at the annual Panther Classic Forensic Tournament that is taking place there this weekend.

I want to congratulate the 8 students I had the privilege of listening to tonight: Allie Parker (speaker 1) and Chelsea Yamashita (speaker 3) team up against Devonte Hardy (speaker 2) and John Putnam (speaker 4), Kara Jo Peed (1) and Tonya Rajan (3) against Chris Byrd (4) and Andrew Overby (2). Each team took on affirmative and negative positions arguing for and against a resolution calling for federal government mandate on all passenger cars and light trucks to use alternative fuel by 2040.

Here was the format:

Speaker 1 spoke for 4 minutes

Speaker 2 spoke for 4 minutes

Crossfire (speakers 1 & 2) for 3 minutes

Speaker 3 spoke for 4 minutes

Speaker 4 spoke for 4 minutes

Crossfire (speakers 3 & 4) for 3 minutes

Speaker 1 Summary for 2 minutes

Speaker 2 Summary for 2 minutes

Grand Crossfire (all) for 3 minutes

Speaker 3 Final Focus for 1 minute

Speaker 4 Final Focus for 1 minute

Overall I was most impressed with team Allie and Chelsey. They had thorough research of the issue and excellent delivery/presentation. Tonya, Allie and Chelsey had commanding knowledge of the issues and so were naturally great at crossfire. Chris particularly had great body language and a good debater. Both Allie and Chelsey had a great presence and presented the issue in an excellent way, made it coming across clearly and succinctly. Andrew was also excellent at crossfire as well as Devonte. Kara Jo and John were equally great.

I thorough enjoyed the one and a half hour spent listening to them, particularly because I myself is very much interested in public policies, and have kept up with the issues, among them alternative energy.