The Burton Panthers competed in the UIL State CX Debate tournament this past Monday and Tuesday. Hosted by the University of Texas, the two day tournament brought together the top 1A, 2A, 3A debaters from across the state to resolve that "The United States federal government should significantly increase its exploration and/or development of the Arctic."
Burton advanced two debate teams to the state meet after a long season of debating the above topic throughout the fall and winter. The team of Amelia Brown (Jr.) and Rubi Rios (Jr.) finished District 26AA in second place. At the state tournament, the pair notched a victory in the preliminary rounds, but did not score enough speaker points to advance to the finals hosted on day two.
Devlin Douglas (Sr.) was joined by Cadeyn Manley (Sr.) in representing Burton as the District 26AA first-place team. The pair have debated together for two years in both CX Debate and Congress, and led the Panthers in rounds won and speaker points throughout the season. The State Tournament proved no different as the duo scored two victories in the preliminary rounds, accruing enough speaker points to advance to the finals on Tuesday. This appearance in a final round marked the first instance of Burton advancing to the second tournament day in four state tournament appearances across Congress and CX Debate. While the pair did not advance beyond the Octofinals on Tuesday, they captured the first medals in state-level debate in the school's history. The achievement serves as a capstone to a debate career that required hundreds of pages of prepared essays and cases being delivered during over 100 hours of debate.