On Sept. 22-26, Junior Jessie Gill won third place in humorous interpretation at the Yale University tournament, bringing home the BHS speech and debate team’s first top three trophy from a prestigious national circuit tournament.

Gill’s performance was from Alvin Ho: Allergic to Girls, School, and Other Scary Things, by Lenore Look. Sophomore teammate Anshika Niraj said, “Her performance was about a kid who has trouble speaking to other people in school and is really shy.”

Niraj explained that Gill was very poised, and that she had everyone laughing, which helped her overcome tough competition.

BHS speech and debate has experienced rapid growth since Matt Baron, now a student at Northwestern University, launched the club six years ago.

“The difference between speech and debate is that in debate, students address specific topics given to them to research. In speech, students get to choose their own topics or pieces,” said Majercak.

Majercak also described some of the events in which debate students participate: three of these events include congressional debate, where students propose bills and then argue for or against each bill; public forum debate, where students work in teams to build pro or con cases for a given resolution; and humorous interpretation, dramatic and duo interpretation, where students choose a play, book or movie and perform it.

“We have about forty students total, but depending on the tournament not all forty will compete due to the level of the tournament and registration limits,” said Majercak. “At Yale, only nine students went because I chose only those whom I knew were ready to do well at such a difficult tournament.”

Majercak said that speech and debate students gain the ability to logically present and defend their opinions, ability to research and give multiple speeches based on that research.

Majercak mentioned that the team is young with only a few seniors. Most of the students joined either this year or last. Sophomores Anshika Niraj, Jayanth Rajan, Varun Jambunath, juniors Max Yanowitz, Maddie Adelman, Beth Moses, Jessie Gill, Wooyoung Lee and senior Chenyu Zhang are a few of the students who attended the tournament at Yale.

WooYoung Lee, the vice president of the club, said that he participated in public forum debate, yet did not get as far as Gill. “Jessie [Gill] was the one who went to the final round and brought the big blue trophy home,” said Lee.

“The secret of success in debate basically comes from commitment. For one thing, we travel long distances, sometimes around ten hours,” said Lee.

He also said that the reason behind Gill’s success is because she has been acting since she was young.

Majercak agrees. “Jessie [Gill’s] success basically revolves around the fact that she has been working very hard ever since she was young, and has become so talented.”

Gill’s teammates and coach are clearly proud of her. “[Her] trophy is so big it doesn’t fit in our trophy case,” Majercak said.