During the first two weekends of November, Fuqua School’s debate team participated in two tournaments.

The first tournament — at Midlothian High School — was a large event with more than 200 debaters. The school sent eight members of the team to this tournament: Max Gebauer (captain), Paavan Bonagiri, Roman Davis, Andrew Horton, Cody Howard, Christian Huggard, Christopher Kendall and Peyton Wiecking. The team was a mix of experienced and novice debaters, who  gained quite a bit of experience from top to bottom. Four of the debaters earned trophies — Max Gebauer took second place overall in Lincoln- Douglas, Roman Davis snagged fifth place in the novice division of Lincoln-Douglas, and the team of Cody Howard and Peyton Wiecking brought home the third-place trophy in novice Public Forum.

At the second tournament of the year, four Lincoln-Douglas debaters traveled to Madison County High School for the first event in the Virginia Catholic Forensic League. Although a slightly smaller tournament, the team swept the top four spots in Lincoln-Douglas with Max Gebauer taking the top prize. Paavan Bonagiri also went 3-0 while Roman Davis and Christopher Kendall both went 2-1 to close out the top four. The four debaters dominated the competition over the issue of limited qualified immunity through a mix of logic, rhetoric and teamwork. Their sweep of the Lincoln-Douglas discipline secured the team a second-place trophy in the overall Debate Sweepstakes — a combined score from the three debate disciplines: Lincoln-Douglas, Public Forum and Student Congress.