Shaun Dwyer, a 2007 graduate has held the National Forensics League record at Parsons High School for nearly two decades, but his lead with 2,187 NFL points is likely coming to an end as PHS senior Madelyn Armitage prepares to move past him and take the first place position.
The points are essentially a system of recognition and achievement within the National Speech and Debate Association that rewards students (and teachers) for their involvement and excellence in speech and debate. Points are earned through competition and service activities.
Currently Armitage has 2,128 points. Having qualified for both state and national competitions, at which she will compete in multiple events, she will earn even more points. At state she will compete in extemporaneous, impromptu and informative speaking. At nationals she will compete in public forum debate.
“Worst case scenario she gets another 70 or 80 between state and nationals,” ensuring she will surpass Dwyer, PHS forensics and debate coach Ed Workman said. Given her performance the last four years, she is likely to surpass Dwyer with considerable points, making her record and first place standing one that could remain for many years to come.
“She is probably going to come in at 2,230, so she is going to clear it by a margin,” Workman said. “She’s not going to just set a new mark, but set a high one.”
Armitage is one of the rare students who took to forensics and debate from the beginning. Workman said there are very few students who qualify for nationals their first year in, but Armitage did as a freshman, and she is a four time national qualifier.
“That’s a special category,” he said. “It is very hard to qualify for nationals as a freshman. That is the tough one. I’ve had a lot of talented people and they would get it three times, or two times, but hitting the ground so much that in competition against graduating seniors who are fighting you for a spot at nationals, and as a freshman you take one of those spots, is pretty impressive.”
Armitage said she qualified for nationals in World Schools Debate, which is basically qualifying by being selected by the debate coaches serving on the district committee. Coaches on the committee cannot nominate students from their own schools.
“I didn’t even know that was an opportunity or something that I could do,” Armitage said. “It was kind of surprising to know I was picked. I hadn’t expected that. World Schools is a debate that we don’t really do in Southeast Kansas, but it is a nationals event. They select different debaters from different schools in the area of Southeast Kansas and they debate on a team together against other schools from around the country.”
Her interest in joining debate began in middle school. She had Workman as a teacher for French, and he spoke to his class about debate and forensics.
“My grandma told me, too, ‘You should take debate,’ and that kind of led to it as well,” Armitage said.
“With debate, I liked arguing. That’s about it,” she said of jumping into the program wholeheartedly as a freshman. “With forensics, I wasn’t really going to do forensics. I was kind of opposed to it and then I kind of fell into that because I wanted to do a debate event on a Saturday and they cancelled it. So Workman was like, ‘Well, do you want to do some forensics stuff?’ and it just went from there.”
“With debate, I really liked it. I felt it just gave me an opportunity to argue and assert myself in a way,” she said. “In forensics I didn’t start until my sophomore year. Once I started doing it, it came down to, "I was good at it, so I continued doing it.”
What she found most intriguing and appealing about debate was learning it is about more than just arguing a point.
“There are so many different kinds of arguments and there is so much to them, so you get engulfed in learning the ins and outs of how it works, and I think that is really interesting to see how things fit together.”
This fall Armitage is headed for KU where she will major in engineering.
“I think for any career really, you need communication skills and critical thinking skills, and that is really the foundation of what debate and forensics is, is learning to debate and understand everything critically about the material,” she said.
Armitage has no idea how many tournaments or events she has participated in during her four years, but her hard work has earned her Premier Distinction in the NSDA and a big sack full of medals.
“She’s very modest. She hides a lot of exactly how much work she actually does,” Workman said. She commits her time not only to her own preparations for competitions, but helps her fellow underclassmen prepare as well, sharing the experience and knowledge she has gained. “I know the depth of how far she goes, but she never says anything.”
It is because of her help that PHS has 12 students who have qualified for state in 26 events, and 13 students who are national qualifiers, which Workman said he thinks is a record number for PHS.
As she is wrapping up her senior year and preparing for graduation, Armitage is wrapping her mind around the thought of having her name on the PHS NSDA (formerly NFL, National Forensics League) record board in the hallway display case in perpetuity.
“It feels nice to know there is a lasting impact,” she said. “I guess there would be a lasting impact either way, but it’s nice there is a tangible, noticeable impact.”
While she is grabbing the top ranking, it will move all the other names down the board, knocking the 10th place person’s name off the board.
This is the year Ajit Pai’s name is finally being removed from the top 10 scorers list,” for Parsons High School.”
Lawyer and former Chairman of the Federal Communications Commission Ajit Pai, a 1990 PHS graduate, had earned 1,542 points in his high school debate and forensics career. Michael “Mike” Monninger, also a 1990 graduate, who had earned 1551 will now take the number 10 place.
While their overall scores don’t reach the level of Armitage's, in August 1990, the Parsons Sun reported that Monninger and Pai made the cover of the National Forensics League’s Rostrum magazine, and made history in the process. Monninger and Pai, who graduated from Parsons High School in May 1990, were among the four top NFL students nationally for 1990. It was the first time two students from the same school had earned that privilege during the same year in the 65-year history of the NFL. It also was the second and third times PHS had an all-American, a distinction given to the top 25 NFL students in the nation.
Through the decades, Parsons High School students continue to reach top levels of distinction and accomplishment across the board, breaking records and earning their own places in this school’s history.