Speech and Debate Alumni

Class of 1990 | Apple Valley High School, Minnesota

Reuben Advani is a business executive and author. Currently, Mr. Advani serves as the CEO of The Global STEM Alliance, an initiative focused on improving the quality of STEM education and increasing access to it. Mr. Advani authored the successful business books, The Wall Street MBA, published by McGraw-Hill, and Financial Freedom, published by Apress. He has been featured in prominent magazines including Investor’s Business Daily and U.S. News & World Report. Mr. Advani holds a B.A. from Yale University and an M.B.A. from the Wharton School. He also serves as an adjunct professor of finance at a number of universities.

Class of 1968 | Trenton Hamilton East High School, New Jersey

Samuel Anthony Alito Jr. is an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. He graduated from Yale Law School in 1975, where he was an editor of the Yale Law Journal. He was nominated to the Court by President George W. Bush and has served on the court since January 31, 2006. Alito is considered one of the most conservative justices on the Court and has described himself as a “practical originalist.” Alito’s majority opinions in landmark cases include McDonald v. Chicago and Burwell v. Hobby Lobby.

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IN HIS WORDS | Read this letter written by Justice Alito about his time in debate, courtesy of Tara L. Tate.

Class of 2002 | St. Thomas Aquinas High School, Florida

Kevin Allocca is an author and technology professional and is currently the Head of Culture & Trends at YouTube, where he tracks popular video phenomena and manages trending content initiatives. He is YouTube’s expert on the intersection of web video and global culture, and is often cited in the press on subjects of virality, popularity, and breaking news. His TED Talk on “Why Videos Go Viral” has been watched more than two million times, and he has been a keynote speaker at festivals and industry events all over the world. His book Videocracy, which explores YouTube’s most interesting trends and the impact of video on our culture, was published by Bloomsbury in January 2018. He is an alumnus of Boston College and lives and works in New York City.

Class of 2002 | Cypress Creek High School, Florida

Kristen Soltis Anderson is author of The Selfie Vote: Where Millennials Are Leading America (And How Republicans Can Keep Up). She is a political analyst for ABC News and a columnist at The Washington Examiner. She is co-founder of Echelon Insights, an opinion research and data analytics firm, and she co-hosts the bipartisan polling podcast The Pollsters.

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Class of 1975 | Harvard School, California

B. Douglas Bernheim is the Chair of Stanford University’s Department of Economics, where he is also the Edward Ames Edmonds Professor of Economics. He has previously served as the Director of the Stanford Institute for Theoretical Economics, and has held faculty positions at Princeton University and Northwestern University. His research has spanned a variety of fields, including public economics, behavioral economics, game theory, contract theory, industrial organization, political economy, and financial economics. His honors and awards include election as a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, a John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship, and an Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Research Fellowship. He is also a Partner of Bates White, LLC, one of the nation’s premier economic consulting firms, where he serves on the Board of Directors. He has testified as an economic expert in numerous high-profile lawsuits, where his speech and debate training has come in handy. The pinnacle of his speech and debate career was winning the 1976 College Freshman National Debate Championship at Northwestern.

Class of 1985 | Loyola High School, Minnesota

John Bessler is an Associate Professor at the University of Baltimore School of Law, an Adjunct Professor at the Georgetown University Law Center, and of counsel to the Minneapolis law firm of Berens & Miller, P.A. He previously taught a death penalty seminar at the University of Minnesota Law School, where he is currently a visiting scholar at the Human Rights Center. Professor Bessler has written eight books, including multiple books on the subject of capital punishment. The Death Penalty as Torture: From the Dark Ages to Abolition, published in 2017, was the recipient of the Bronze Medal in the World History category of the Independent Publisher Book Awards.

Alexander Ramsey High School, Minnesota

Rebecca Blank is the current chancellor of the University of Wisconsin-Madison and former Acting United States Secretary of Commerce. Blank was serving as United States Deputy Secretary of Commerce when she was named to lead the United States Department of Commerce as Acting Secretary on June 11, 2012. A native of Missouri, Blank is a summa cum laude graduate in economics from the University of Minnesota and holds a Ph.D. in economics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Blank was the national champion in Girls’ Extemporaneous Speaking in 1973, a fact that was included in her nomination to be Deputy Secretary of Commerce.

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Class of 1993 | Bellaire-Houston High School, Texas

Lisa Blatt heads the Appellate and Supreme Court practice at Arnold & Porter. Blatt has argued 35 cases before the Supreme Court, prevailing in 33. She has argued in front of the Supreme Court more than any other female litigator in the country. The National Law Journal called her a “visionary” and one of “the 100 most influential lawyers in America.” The Washingtonian has listed her as one of the “Most Powerful Women in Washington” four times, and Chambers USA has noted her “meticulous oral argument preparation and ‘great presence before the court.'” Her oral advocacy is cited as exemplary in the Supreme Court Clerk’s Guide for Counsel.

Class of 2004 | Moorhead High School, Minnesota

Preston Boyd has been a principal actor in two national Broadway tours: in Jersey Boys as Bob Gaudio and as The Monster in The New Mel Brooks Musical: Young Frankenstein. He has performed in regional theatre productions of Of Mice and Men, Les Miserables, Singin’ in the Rain, Oklahoma, Annie Get Your Gun, Oliver, Peter Pan, and Aida. He performed in Working at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. Preston is excited to play the role of Artie Green and join Glenn Close in the Broadway musical revival of Sunset Boulevard.

Class of 2002 | St. Mark’s School of Texas, Texas

Josh Branson is a partner at the Washington, D.C. law firm of Kellogg, Hansen, Todd, Figel & Frederick PLLC. Josh specializes in complex civil litigation, with particular experience in securities, antitrust, telecommunications, and anti-terrorism cases. While at the firm, he has delivered oral argument in multiple U.S. Courts of Appeals and has represented clients throughout all phases of district-court and appellate litigation. Prior to joining Kellogg Hansen, Josh served as a law clerk to the Honorable Diana Gribbon Motz on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, and he graduated magna cum laude from Harvard Law School, where he was a research assistant to legendary debater Professor Laurence Tribe.

Josh was a national champion debater in both high school and college. In high school, he won the 2002 National Forensic League (now NSDA) national championship in Policy Debate. In 2005, debating for Northwestern University, he won the National Debate Tournament. In 2006, he was named top speaker of the National Debate Tournament and set what was then a record for the highest speaker points awarded in the history of that tournament.

Class of 2006 | Carrollton School Of The Sacred Heart, Florida

Yvanna Cancela is the first Latina state senator in Nevada and serves as the Executive Director of the Immigrant Workers Citizenship Project, which helps individuals apply to become a citizen free of charge. Previously, she was the political director of Nevada’s largest immigrant organization, the Culinary Workers Union in Las Vegas. In high school, Yvanna competed in Policy Debate at Carrollton School Of The Sacred Heart.

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Class of 1976 | Fairmont West High School, Ohio

As a Primetime Emmy and Annie Award winning actress, Nancy is best known as the voice of spiky-headed underachiever Bart Simpson, but also gives voice to Ralph Wiggum, Nelson Muntz, Rod Flanders, Maggie Simpson, DataBase and Kearney in the town of Springfield on Fox’s 28-year-iconic hit, The Simpsons. It is the longest running scripted TV series in history—starting its 29th year in production. In her 36-year career at the microphone, Nancy has lent her voice to hundreds of other award-winning animated series, including Rugrats (Chuckie); Kim Possible (Rufus the Naked Mole Rat); Richie Rich (Gloria); Animaniacs (Mindy); The Replacements (Todd) as well as Pinky and the Brain; The Critic; God, The Devil and Bob; Mike, Lu & Og; and Chuck Jones’ final work, Timberwolf. In high school, Nancy performed Poetry and Prose and says winning Humorous Interpretation was her first claim to fame.

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Class of 1937 | Dickson County High School, Tennessee

Frank G. Clement was an American lawyer and politician who served as Governor of Tennessee from 1953 to 1959 and from 1963 to 1967. His 10 years in office was the longest of any of the state’s 20th century governors. Clement owed much of his rapid political rise to his ability to deliver rousing, mesmerizing speeches. As governor, Clement oversaw the state’s economic transformation from a predominantly agricultural state to an industrial state. He increased funding for education and mental health and was the first Southern governor to veto a segregation bill. In 1956, he dispatched the National Guard to disperse a crowd attempting to prevent integration at Clinton High School.

IN HIS WORDS | “I cannot think of anyone in the country who owes more to his participation in the National Forensic League events than I do.”

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Class of 1984 | Cedarburg High School, Wisconsin

Paul Clement is a partner in the Washington, D.C., office of Kirkland & Ellis LLP. Paul served as the 43rd Solicitor General of the United States from June 2005 until June 2008. Before his confirmation as Solicitor General, he served as Acting Solicitor General for nearly a year and as Principal Deputy Solicitor General for over three years.

He has argued more than 90 cases before the United States Supreme Court, including McConnell v. FEC, Tennessee v. Lane, Rumsfeld v. Padilla, Credit Suisse v. Billing, United States v. Booker, MGM v. Grokster, ABC v. Aereo, and Hobby Lobby v. Burwell. Paul has argued more Supreme Court cases since 2000 than any lawyer in or out of government. He has also argued many important cases in the lower courts, including Walker v. Cheney, United States v. Moussaoui, and NFL v. Brady.

Class of 2008 | Clovis East High School, California

Chris Colfer is an American Golden Globe Award winning actor, singer, and #1 New York Times Bestselling writer. He gained international recognition for his portrayal of Kurt Hummel on the hit television singing series Glee (2009-2015). Colfer’s portrayal of Kurt has received critical praise for which he has been the recipient of several awards, including Best Supporting Actor in a Series, Miniseries or Television Film at the 2011 Golden Globe Awards. Colfer wrote, starred in, produced, and novelized his first film, Struck by Lightning, which debuted at the 2012 Tribeca Film Festival. He is also a New York Times number-one bestselling author of The Land of Stories: The Wishing Spell, the first novel in his middle-grade reader series. Colfer competed in Dramatic Interp, Humorous Interp, and Expository.

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Class of 1998 | Ruston High School, Louisiana

Brittney Cooper is a writer, teacher, and public speaker. Brittney is Associate Professor of Women’s and Gender Studies and Africana Studies at Rutgers University. She is co-founder of the popular Crunk Feminist Collective blog, a contributing writer for Cosmopolitan.com, and a former contributor to Salon.com. Her cultural commentary has been featured on MSNBC’s All In With Chris Hayes, Melissa Harris-Perry, Al Jazeera’s Third Rail, the New York Times, the Washington Post, NPR, PBS, Ebony.com, Essence.com, TheRoot.com, and TED.com. Dr. Cooper is co-editor of The Crunk Feminist Collection (The Feminist Press, 2017). She is author of Beyond Respectability: The Intellectual Thought of Race Women and Eloquent Rage: A Black Feminist Discovers Her Superpower. Brittney competed in both speech and debate events in high school.

IN HER WORDS | “The debate team was the first place I fit, the first place that my loud-mouth, yet slightly introverted Black girl self, felt included, seen, and sure of myself. I became a professor because I wanted to engage in the kinds of intellectual inquiry, and indeed to examine the kinds of critical thought—feminism and critical race theory—that I first learned to love while cutting cards and writing frontlines for Policy Debate.”

Class of 1940 | Oklahoma City-Classen High School, Oklahoma

William James Crowe Jr. was a United States Navy admiral who served as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff under Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush. In 1993, President Clinton named Crowe chairman of the President’s Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board. Then in 1994, President Clinton appointed Crowe the United States Ambassador to the United Kingdom. He served in that capacity until 1997. Following his retirement from the Navy, Crowe was awarded a 2000 Presidential Medal of Freedom, the United States’ highest civilian honor.

IN HIS WORDS | “Debate was the single most important activity I participated in at the Naval Academy.”

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Class of 1980 | Bozeman High School, Montana

Steve Daines is a United States Senator from Montana. He previously was the U.S. Representative for Montana’s at-large congressional district from 2013 to 2015. In the 2014 midterm election, he won an open seat, defeating Democrat Amanda Curtis. Prior to his career in public office, Daines spent 13 years with Procter & Gamble, where he helped expand their business to Hong Kong and China.

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Class of 1967 | Speedway High School, Indiana

Joyce DeWitt is an American actress. From 1977 to 1983, Dewitt played Janet Wood on the ABC sitcom Three’s Company, which tells the story of Janet Wood (Joyce DeWitt), Chrissy Snow (Suzanne Somers), and Jack Tripper (John Ritter) who all platonically live together in an apartment. The show raked in record ratings, breaking barriers at the time as the highest-rated midseason show ever broadcast on network television.

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Fullerton High School, California

Viet Dinh is a lawyer and a conservative legal scholar who served as an Assistant Attorney General of the United States from 2001 to 2003, under the presidency of George W. Bush. Born in Saigon, in the former South Vietnam, he was the chief architect of the USA PATRIOT Act and is a former member of the Board of Directors of News Corporation.

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Class of 1995 | Parsons High School, Kansas

Pintip Dunn is a New York Times bestselling author of young adult fiction. She graduated from Harvard University, magna cum laude, with an A.B. in English Literature and Language. She received her J.D. at Yale Law School.

Pintip’s novel, Forget Tomorrow, won the RWA RITA® for Best First Book. It is also a finalist for the Grand Prix de l’Imaginaire, the Japanese Sakura Medal, the MASL Truman Award, and the Tome Society It list. In addition, The Darkest Lie was nominated for a Romantic Times Reviewers’ Choice Award. Her books have been translated into four languages, and her other titles include Remember Yesterday, Seize Today, Girl on the Verge, and the upcoming Star-Crossed and Malice.

She lives with her husband and children in Maryland.

Class of 1980 | Northwest High School, Tennessee

Dr. Mike Edmonds is the Dean of Students and Vice President of Student life at Colorado College. He also serves as Chair of the Board at Memorial Hospital of South Bend and was previously the Assistant Dean of Students at the University of Mississippi. Dr. Edmonds began his forensic career as a seventh-grader in Clarksville, Tennessee, and majored in theater and speech at the University of Mississippi. He has been elected by the Barkley KEY Society, one of the nation’s most prestigious forensic educators honor societies, as an honorary KEY coach. Dr. Edmonds competed in Interp, Congressional Debate, and Extemp and returns to judge at the National Tournament every year.

To learn more, check out this article published in the Winter 2017 issue of Rostrum magazine.

Class of 1996 | Stuyvesant High School, New York

Billy Eichner is an American comedian, actor, writer, and television personality. He is the star, executive producer, and creator of Funny Or Die’s Billy on the Street, a comedy game show that airs on truTV. Eichner was nominated for a Daytime Emmy Award for “Outstanding Game Show Host” in 2013. He is also known for playing Craig Middlebrooks on the sitcom Parks and Recreation. Eichner currently stars in the Hulu original series Difficult People alongside Julie Klausner and is involved in the seventh season of American Horror Story, which premiered September 5, 2017. Eichner competed in speech events at Stuyvesant High School.

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Class of 1971 | Joseph A. Craig High School, Wisconsin

Russ Feingold is an American lawyer and politician from Wisconsin. He served as a democratic member of the U.S. Senate from 1993-2011. During his time in the U.S. Senate, Feingold gained a reputation as a political maverick with an independent streak. Previously, he was a Wisconsin State Senator in the 27th district. Feingold received the John F. Kennedy Profit in Courage Award for cosponsoring the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act, which is a piece of campaign finance reform legislation. In 2013, he was selected by Secretary of State John Kerry to serve as a special envoy to the Great Lakes region of Africa.

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Class of 1979 | Thomas Jefferson High School, Texas

When he graduated from high school, David Frederick was the all-time point leader in the history of the National Forensic League, the predecessor to the NSDA. Coached by legendary Hall of Fame coach Lanny Naegelin, Frederick was second at the National Speech Tournament in Original Oratory in 1977 and second at Nationals in Boys’ Extemp in 1979. His team at Jefferson High School won the national team championship in 1979. He is now a leading appellate lawyer based in Washington, D.C. He has argued more than 100 appeals, including 50 in the U.S. Supreme Court, and appeared in every federal court of appeals. Frederick has represented clients across the broadest possible spectrum, including individuals, labor unions, large and small corporations, states, the United States, and foreign governments. From 1996-2001, he served as an Assistant to the Solicitor General. Since 2001, he has been a partner at Kellogg, Hansen, Todd, Figel & Frederick.

Class of 1999 | NSU University School, Florida

Joshua Ilan Gad is an actor, comedian, and singer. He is best known for voicing Olaf in Frozen, playing Elder Arnold Cunningham in the Broadway musical The Book of Mormon, and starring as LeFou in the live-action musical film Beauty and the Beast.

Gad attended NSU University School, graduating in 1999. While there, he won the NSDA national championship in Original Oratory in 1998, and for Humorous Interpretation and Original Oratory in 1999.

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Watch Josh perform his winning oration from 1998!

Class of 1987 | Milton Academy, Massachusetts

Austan D. Goolsbee is the Robert P. Gwinn Professor of Economics at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business. He previously served in Washington as the Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers and a member of the President Obama’s cabinet. His research has earned him recognition as a Fulbright Scholar and an Alfred P. Sloan fellow. Goolsbee serves on the Economic Advisory Panel to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York and has previously served on the Panel of Economic Advisors to the Congressional Budget Office, the U.S. Census Advisory Commission and as a special consultant for Internet Policy to the Antitrust Division of the Department of Justice. As a high school student, Goolsbee won the NSDA national championship in International Extemporaneous Speaking (IX) in 1987.

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Class of 1955 | Miami Carol City High School, Florida

Daniel Robert Graham is an American politician and author. A member of the Democratic Party, he was the 38th governor of Florida from 1979 to 1987 and a United States Senator from 1987 to 2005. Graham helped found the Democratic Leadership Council and eventually became Chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee. Graham served as co-chair of the National Commission on the BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill and Offshore Drilling and as a member of the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission and the CIA External Advisory Board. He works at the Bob Graham Center for Public Service at his undergraduate alma mater, the University of Florida. He also served as Chairman of the Commission on the Prevention of WMD proliferation and terrorism. Through the WMD policy center he advocates for the recommendations in the Commission’s report, “World at Risk.” In 2011, Graham published his first novel, the thriller The Keys to the Kingdom. He has also written three nonfiction books: Workdays: Finding Florida on the Job, Intelligence Matters, and America: The Owner’s Manual.

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Class of 2001 | Moorhead High School, Minnesota

Becky Gulsvig is an American actress, singer, and dancer. Gulsvig’s first role was that of Wendy in a touring production of Peter Pan. She has performed on Broadway in Hairspray as Amber Von Tussle and originated the role of Leilani in the Broadway production of Legally Blonde the Musical, understudying the roles of Elle Woods, Serena, and Margot. She starred as Elle Woods in the North American national tour of Legally Blonde the Musical and was nominated for the 2009 Helen Hayes Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Non-Resident Production. Gulsvig performed the song “So Much Better” live at the 2009 Tony Awards ceremony. In 2015, Gulsvig played Cynthia Weil in the U.S. national tour of Beautiful: The Carole King Musical. She returned to Broadway in 2010 as Patty in School of Rock.

IN HER WORDS | “Speech played such a huge role in making me who I am today. On and off the stage I am a better person and performer because of the creativity and confidence that speech gave me. I am so thankful for Rebecca Meyer-Larson and my Moorhead Senior High School speech experience!”

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Harvard School, California

David Henry Hwang is a playwright, screenwriter, television writer, and librettist whose stage works includes the plays M. Butterfly, Chinglish, Yellow Face, Kung Fu, Golden Child, The Dance and the Railroad, and FOB, as well as the Broadway musicals Aida (co-author), Flower Drum Song (2002 revival), and Disney’s Tarzan. Hwang is a Tony Award winner and three-time nominee, a three-time OBIE Award winner, and a two-time Finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. He is also America’s most-produced living opera librettist, whose works have been honored with two Grammy Awards, and he co-wrote the Gold Record Solo with the late pop star Prince. Hwang is currently a Writer/Consulting Producer for the Golden Globe-winning television series The Affair. His screenplays include Possession, M. Butterfly, and Golden Gate. Hwang was a Residency One Playwright at Signature Theatre, which produced a season of his plays, and M. Butterfly was recently revived on Broadway. His opera An American Soldier, with composer Huang Ruo, will premiere in June 2018 at Opera Theatre of St. Louis. Recent honors include 2011 PEN/Laura Pels Award for a Master American Dramatist, the 2012 Inge Award, the 2012 Steinberg Distinguished Playwright “Mimi” Award, a 2014 Doris Duke Artist Award, and a 2015 Ford Foundation “Art of Change” Award. He serves on the Board of the Lark Play Development Center, as Head of Playwriting at Columbia University School of the Arts, and as Chair of the American Theatre Wing.

Class of 1999 | Bangor High School, Maine

Dr. Stephanie Jenkins is a researcher, teacher, and activist. Dr. Jenkins is Assistant Professor in the School of History, Philosophy, and Religion at Oregon State University. She is the co-founder and former co-director of the Phronesis Lab for Engaged Ethics, as well as the current Director of the OSU Disability Network. In addition to publishing scholarly articles in moral philosophy, she is co-editing the forthcoming book, Cripping Critical Animal Studies. Nicknamed the “Professor of Phish,” Dr. Jenkins designed and teaches the “Philosophy School of Phish,” a for-credit college course that uses the rock band as a case study for exploring the Philosophy of Art and Music. The course was featured in this Billboard Magazine article. She discusses the role her debate experience plays in her pedagogical methods in this interview with Engaged Philosophy.

Dr. Jenkins grew up in Bangor, Maine. At Bangor High School, she competed in both speech and debate events. She was the 1999 Maine Lincoln-Douglas Debate champion, a two-time attendee of NFL Nationals, and the first Maine debater to qualify for and attend the Tournament of Champions. Dr. Jenkins graduated summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa from Emory University with a B.A. in Philosophy. While in college, she competed in Policy Debate and volunteered for the Urban Debate League as a member of the Barkley Forum. Dr. Jenkins received her M.A. in Philosophy and dual Ph.D. in Philosophy and Women’s Studies from the Pennsylvania State University.

IN HER WORDS | “Participating in Lincoln-Douglas and Policy Debate was my most significant educational experience. I use the speaking, critical thinking, organization, and research skills I learned in debate every day. Debate is where I found confidence in my intellectual voice and discovered that ideas matter.”

Henry County High School, Tennessee

Cherry Jones is a five-time Tony Award nominee for her work on Broadway. She won the Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play for the 1995 revival of The Heiress and for the 2005 original production of Doubt. She won the 2009 Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama Series for her role as Allison Taylor on the FOX television series 24. She has also won three Drama Desk Awards. Cherry Jones became the first out lesbian to win a Tony Award when she was chosen as Best Actress in 1995. She was a national runner up in Dramatic Interpretation at the National Tournament. Cherry Jones was coached by legendary Hall of Fame coach Ruby Krider, who helped her get into the acting program at Carnegie Melon University.

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Class of 1987 | Loyola Academy, Illinois

Neal Kumar Katyal is a partner at Hogan Lovells, the Paul and Patricia Saunders Professor of National Security Law at the Georgetown University Law Center, and a former Acting Solicitor General for the United States. In 2017, he presented his 35th Supreme Court argument, breaking Thurgood Marshall’s 50-year-old record to become the minority lawyer with the most oral arguments before the U.S. Supreme Court.

He served as Vice President Al Gore’s co-counsel in Bush v. Gore 2000. He was lead counsel for the Guantanamo Bay detainees in the Supreme Court case Hamdan v. Rumsfeld 2006. The U.S. Justice Department bestowed its highest honor for a civilian to him, the Edmund Randolph Award.

He was a successful high school debater for Loyola Academy (IL) and Dartmouth College (NH).

Class of 2007 | Palo Verde High School, Nevada

Jessica Kurr is a postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Communication Arts & Sciences at the Pennsylvania State University. She also serves as an affiliate with the Penn State President’s Commission on LGBTQ Equity. She was the second editor for the volume Speech and Debate as Civic Education (Penn State Press, 2017), which received support from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the National Communication Association. She currently researches political rhetoric, specifically how debates unfold over economic, political, and LGBTQ issues. Her work has won awards and been supported by the American Society for the History of Rhetoric, the History of Economics Society, the University of Utah, the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Foundation, and the Volcker Alliance. She previously served as Director of Debate for the Penn State Speech & Debate Society, and she received her Ph.D. from Penn State, MA from Baylor University, and BSBA from the University of Pittsburgh. She competed in Policy Debate while in college and primarily competed in Lincoln-Douglas Debate and International Extemp while in high school.

Class of 1997 | Belen Jesuit Prep School, Florida

Tom Llamas is an Emmy Award-winning journalist, anchor of ABC News “World News Tonight” weekend editions, and Chief National Affairs Correspondent, reporting for all ABC News programs and platforms.

IN HIS WORDS | “Speech and debate taught me at a young age how to handle serious issues and how to present them in front of an audience.”

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Class of 1967 | South Side High School, Indiana

Shelley Long is an actress best known for her role as Diane Chambers on the sitcom Cheers. She received five Emmy nominations for the role, winning in 1983 for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series, as well as two Golden Globe Awards for the role. Long reprised her role as Diane Chambers in four episodes of the spinoff Frasier, for which she received an additional guest star Emmy nomination. In 2009, she began playing a recurring role as DeDe Pritchett on the ABC comedy series Modern Family. Shelley Long was a national champion in Original Oratory.

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Class of 2008 | Christopher Columbus High School, Florida

Carlos Maza is a video producer at Vox.com where he produces a series called Strikethrough, focusing on journalism in the age of Trump. Prior to joining Vox, he was research fellow at Media Matters, where he produced videos and led the organization’s LGBT work. He graduated from Wake Forest University in 2010.

Class of 2006 | Academy of the Holy Names, Florida

Kayleigh McEnany is an American political commentator and writer. After graduating from Georgetown University, McEnany was a producer on Mike Huckabee’s TV show. She interned for several politicians, including Tom Gallagher, Adam Putnam, and George W. Bush, for Bush’s 2004 campaign and in the White House Office of Communications in the Media Affairs department. She is a former CNN contributor and in 2017, she was appointed national Spokesperson for the Republican National Committee.

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Class of 1994 | Caddo Parish Magnet High School, Louisiana

Grace Mead is a complex commercial litigator and shareholder at Stearns Weaver Miller in Miami, Florida. Grace attended Dartmouth College, where she continued to compete in debate. She later graduated with High Honors, Order of the Coif, from the University of Chicago Law School, where she was Editor-in-Chief of the Law Review. She then clerked for the Honorable Jerry E. Smith of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, and was an associate at Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz. Since, at Stearns Weaver, from 2007 to 2017, she represented BBX Capital Corporation and its Chairman and CEO Alan Levan, which owned the 100-branch Florida bank BankAtlantic in a Securities and Exchange Commission investigation and then enforcement action alleging BBX had concealed loan risks. A six-week jury trial and split verdict in 2014, a successful appeal to the Eleventh Circuit in 2016, and a second six-week jury trial in 2017 resulted in a verdict and judgment for BBX and Mr. Levan rejecting every claim asserted by the SEC. She currently represents Florida pubic college and university donors, recent graduates, and proposed classes of donors, students, and recent graduates in a lawsuit to compel payment of more than $1 billion owed to Florida’s public colleges, universities, and their students.

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Syosset High School, New York

Idina Menzel rose to prominence when she originated the role of Maureen Johnson in the Broadway musical Rent. Her performance earned her a Tony Award nomination in 1996. She reprised the role in the musical’s 2005 film adaptation. In 2003, Menzel originated the role of Elphaba in the Broadway musical Wicked, a performance for which she won the Tony Award for Best Actress in a Musical. Menzel returned to Broadway as Elizabeth Vaughan in the 2014 musical If/Then, which earned her a third Tony Award nomination. Additionally, Menzel is known for being the voice of Queen Elsa in Walt Disney Animation Studios’ hit 2013 musical film Frozen, in which she sang the Oscar and Grammy Award-winning song “Let It Go.” The song reached number 5 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart, making Menzel the first Tony Award-winning actress to reach the top 10.

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Class of 2002 | Raymore-Peculiar High School, Missouri

Tiara Na’puti is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Communication at the University of Colorado Boulder. She also works with BoulderTalks, a center of the Department of Communication, that fosters community and knowledge through democratic engagement. And, she is a core faculty member in the Center for Native American & Indigenous Studies (CNAIS). She researches and publishes articles on communication and militarization issues in Oceania, and has testified at the United Nations Special Political and Decolonization Committee (Fourth Committee) on the decolonization of Guåhan (Guam).

Tiara competed in both speech and debate events in high school in Peculiar, Missouri. She and her teammates were the Missouri Reader’s Theatre champions in 2001 and 2002. She graduated magna cum laude from Emporia State University with a B.A. in Communication and a B.A. in Spanish. While attending university, she competed in Policy Debate and also participated in Spanish language debates at the Universidad Pública de Navarra (Pamplona, Spain).

Tiara received her M.A. and Ph.D. in Communication Studies with a graduate certificate in Native American & Indigenous Studies from The University of Texas at Austin. While completing her graduate degrees, she coached for the UT-Austin Policy Debate team and also coordinated a short-term grant project that fostered bilingual Policy Debate for Spanish/English speakers in Austin and Rio Grande Valley area high schools. She volunteered for the Urban Debate League and University Interscholastic League (UIL) in Texas, and served as a volunteer translator and interpreter for immigration legal services serving immigrants and refugees throughout Central Texas.

Class of 1998 | Shaker Heights High School, Ohio

Celeste Ng is an American author. Her debut novel, Everything I Never Told You, has won multiple awards, was a New York Times bestseller, Amazon’s #1 Best Book of 2014, and appeared on the Best Book of the Year lists of more than a dozen outlets. Her short story, Girls at Play, won a Pushcart Prize in 2012. Ng’s second novel, Little Fires Everywhere, tells the story of two families in Shaker Heights, Ohio. The book was an instant New York Times Bestseller and Amazon’s Best Novel of 2017.

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Class of 1951 | Beverly Hills High School, California

Elinor Ostrom was an American political economist whose work was associated with the New Institutional Economics and the resurgence of political economy. In 2009, she shared the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences with Oliver E. Williamson for her “analysis of economic governance, especially the commons.” To date, she remains the only woman to win the Nobel Prize in Economics. After graduating with a B.A. and Ph.D. from UCLA, Ostrom lived in Bloomington, Indiana, and served on the faculty of Indiana University, with a late-career affiliation with Arizona State University. She was Distinguished Professor at Indiana University and the Arthur F. Bentley Professor of Political Science and co-director of the Workshop in Political Theory and Policy Analysis at Indiana University, as well as a research professor and the founding director of the Center for the Study of Institutional Diversity at Arizona State University in Tempe. She was a lead researcher for the Sustainable Agriculture and Natural Resource Management Collaborative Research Support Program (SANREM CRSP), managed by Virginia Tech and funded by USAID.

IN HER WORDS | “Since our home in Los Angeles was located at the lower edge of Beverly Hills, my mother arranged for me to attend Beverly Hills High School. Fortunately, I was encouraged to join the debate team in my junior year of high school and participated actively in speech competitions around the state. Learning debate was an important early impact on my ways of thinking. You are taught that there are always at least two sides to public policy questions, and you have to learn a good argument for both sides as well as knowing how to critique both sides.”

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Class of 2000 | James Madison High School, Texas

Jared Padalecki is an actor best known for his role as Sam Winchesteron on Supernatural. He grew up in Texas and rose to fame in the early 2000s after appearing on the television series Gilmore Girls as well as in such films as New York Minute and House of Wax. Padalecki and his partner were champions in Duo Interpretation at the 1998 National Tournament.

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Class of 2014 | Creighton Preparatory School, Nebraska

Walter N. Paul is a senior at Carleton College in Minnesota where he studies International Relations and Arabic and serves as the student body president. He also created a non-profit organization called Engaging Voice, which establishes speech and debate programs at under-resourced middle schools. Walter was named the William Woods Tate, Jr., National Student of the Year by the National Speech & Debate Association in 2014.

Warren Central High School, Indiana

Jane Pauley is an American television journalist and author. She has been involved in news reporting since 1972. She is the anchor of CBS Sunday Morning and previously best known for her 13-year tenure on NBC’s Today program, followed by 12 years as co-host of Dateline NBC, and for her public acknowledgements of her struggle with bipolar disorder.

IN HER WORDS | “One of the most important decisions in my life was when the student body of Warren Central High School in Indianapolis decided I should not be a varsity cheerleader. It meant my weekends were free. For the next three years, I spent most Saturdays on the road with the largest National Forensic League chapter in the country. While the fifteen-year-old girl inside of me still mourns the lost letter sweater, the adult Jane is grateful to NFL for something much more important a—career.”

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Class of 1995 | Freehold Township High School, New Jersey

Kalpen Suresh Modi is an American actor, comedian, producer, and former civil servant best known by his stage name Kal Penn. As an actor, he is known for his role portraying Lawrence Kutner on the television program House as well as the character Kumar Patel in the Harold & Kumar film series. He is also recognized for his performance in the critically acclaimed film The Namesake. Penn has taught at the University of Pennsylvania in the Cinema Studies Program as a visiting lecturer.

In April 2009, Penn joined the Obama administration as an Associate Director in the White House Office of Public Engagement.Penn resigned his post as Barack Obama’s Associate Director of Public Engagement on June 1, 2010, for a brief return to his acting career. He filmed the third installment of the Harold & Kumar series and subsequently returned to the White House Office of Public Engagement as an Associate Director. In July 2011, he again left the White House to accept a role in the hit television series How I Met Your Mother. Currently, he stars in the role of Seth Wright in the ABC political drama Designated Survivor and serves as the current host of the new game show Superhuman.

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Class of 1982 | Kickapoo High School, Missouri

William Bradley Pitt (born December 18, 1963) is an American actor and producer. He has received multiple awards and nominations including an Academy Award as producer under his own company Plan B Entertainment. Pitt is best known for his performances in Fight Club, Ocean’s Eleven, Troy, Mr. and Mrs. Smith, and The Big Short.

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Class of 1959 | Port Clinton High School, Ohio

Robert David Putnam is an American political scientist and professor of Public Policy at the Harvard University John F. Kennedy School of Government. Putnam developed the influential two-level game theory that assumes international agreements will only be successfully brokered if they also result in domestic benefits. His most famous (and controversial) work, Bowling Alone, argues that the United States has undergone an unprecedented collapse in civic, social, associational, and political life (social capital) since the 1960s, with serious negative consequences. In 2010, he co-published an article in which he noted that the trend had moved the other way; he continued to advocate a push towards more social capital but he felt his famous thesis (“Americans are now bowling alone”) was no longer true. In March 2015, he published a book called Our Kids: The American Dream in Crisis that looked at issues of inequality of opportunity in the U.S.

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Class of 2009 | Hinsdale Central High School, Illinois

Nandini Ramakrishnan is a Global Market Strategist in the J.P. Morgan Asset Management Global Market Insights Strategy Team, based in London. She co-authors the Guide to the Markets and other key Market Insights publications relating to macroeconomic and market dynamics. She provides research-driven outlooks for retail and institutional clients based in the UK, Europe, Middle East, and Africa. Nandini speaks frequently on media outlets (BBC, CNBC, Bloomberg, Sky, CNN) and writes a weekly column for the Financial Times Adviser on various investment and macroeconomic topics. Nandini holds a degree in Economics from the University of Chicago and has previously worked in asset-backed debt securities structuring in the J.P. Morgan Investment Bank in the U.S. She has been named a Rising Star in We Are the City’s 2017 Investment Management category, an award sponsored by The Sunday Times, and named a 2017 Economic Analyst of the Year by Investment Week.

Class of 1987 | Aberdeen Central High School, South Dakota

Michael Reszler is the Chief Digital Officer and Sr. Vice President of Strategy and Experimentation at American Public Media Group. Mike has been involved with the creation of the digital news industry since 1996. In that time, he won numerous awards and been involved with and overseen projects that won the Pulitzer, Emmy, and Edward R. Murrow Excellence Award to name a few. He has published and spoken widely on the intersection technology, audiences, and journalism. He was the former Director of Digital News for Knight Ridder where he helped to coordinate the digital newsrooms of 50 different news operations across the country. He hold a Master’s Degree and is A.B.D. from the Claremont Graduate School, where he was a Mellow Scholar and Fellow. For Mike, the single most important educational experience of his life was high school speech and debate.

Class of 1956 | Miami Beach High School, Florida

Robert Rubin was a lawyer, former cabinet member, and retired banking executive. He served as the 70th United States Secretary of the Treasury during the Clinton administration. Before his government service, he spent 26 years at Goldman Sachs, eventually serving as a member of the board and co-chairman from 1990 to 1992. After his political career he served as a director and senior counselor to Citigroup. He is the founder of The Hamilton Project, an economic policy think tank that produces research and proposals on how to create a growing economy that benefits more Americans. He was co-chairman of the Council on Foreign Relations and is a member of the Africa Progress Panel (APP), a group of ten distinguished individuals who advocate at the highest levels for equitable and sustainable development in Africa.

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Class of 1984 | Scranton Central High School, Pennsylvania

Katy Selverstone is an American actress. She is primarily known for her work on The Drew Carey Show as Lisa Robbins, Drew Carey’s girlfriend. More recently, she worked on higher profile shows (such as NYPD Blue, CSI, and CSI: Miami) and movies (Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood). She is also known for her work on the stage, featuring in the original Broadway cast of The Ride Down Mt. Morgan.

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Class of 1982 | Selma High School, Alabama

Terri A. Sewell is an American politician, elected in 2010 as the U.S. Representative for Alabama’s 7th congressional district. A native of Selma, Sewell was the first black valedictorian of Selma High School, where she was coached by the great William Woods Tate, Jr. She is a graduate of Princeton University, Harvard Law School, and Oxford University and is a public finance attorney. Sewell is a member of the Democratic Party and the first black woman elected to Congress from Alabama.

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Class of 1999 | Beaverton High School, Oregon

Joseph Shapiro is Assistant Professor in the Department of Economics at Yale University. He is also a Faculty Research Fellow at the National Bureau of Economic Research and a staff member of the Cowles Foundation for Research in Economics. He researches environmental and energy economics, and specifically investigates how globalization affects the environment, the potential of adaptation to climate change, and the costs and benefits of water pollution regulation like the U.S. Clean Water Act. He received a Ph.D. in Economics from MIT, Master’s degrees from Oxford and LSE as a Marshall Scholar, and a BA from Stanford. He was named the national champion in Impromptu Speaking in 1999.

IN HIS WORDS | “I did Lincoln-Douglas Debate, Extemporaneous Speaking, and Impromptu Speaking. I use skills from speech and debate practically every day in researching and writing papers, presenting work, and teaching students.”

Class of 1999 | Des Moines Roosevelt High School, Iowa

Ben Silbermann is an internet entrepreneur who is the co-founder and CEO of Pinterest, a virtual pinboard that lets users organize images, links, recipes, and other items. The website allows users to create and manage theme-based image collections called ‘pinboards.’ Examples include events, interests, hobbies, and more. Users can browse other pinboards for inspiration, ‘re-pin’ images to their own collections, and/or ‘like’ photos. Silberman competed in both speech and debate and attended the National Tournament.

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Class of 1972 | Cardinal Spellman High School, New York

Sonia Sotomayor is an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, serving since August 2009. She has the distinction of being its first justice of Hispanic heritage, the first Latina, its third female justice, and its twelfth Roman Catholic justice. Sotomayor graduated summa cum laude from Princeton University in 1976 and received her J.D. from Yale Law School in 1979, where she was an editor at the Yale Law Journal. Sotomayor was nominated to the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New Yorkby President George H. W. Bush in 1991; confirmation followed in 1992. In 1997, she was nominated by President Bill Clinton to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. In 2009, President Barack Obama nominated Sotomayor to the Supreme Court following the retirement of Justice David Souter.

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Houston-Bellaire High School, Texas

Brent Spiner is an American actor, comedian, and singer best known for his portrayal of the android Lieutenant Commander Data in the television series Star Trek: The Next Generation and four subsequent films. In 1997, he won the Saturn Award for Best Supporting Actor for his portrayal of Data in Star Trek: First Contact, and was nominated in the same category for portraying Dr. Brackish Okun in Independence Day, a role he reprised in Independence Day: Resurgence. He has also enjoyed a career in the theatre and as a musician.

In 1967, Spiner was the national champion in Dramatic Interpretation, competing under the name Brent Mintz.

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Class of 2014 | Millard West High School, Nebraska

Tayler W. Sundermann is a senior at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln studying mechanical engineering. He is most recognized for the creation of the national non-profit Put A Sock In It, which takes mismatched socks and redistributes them to those in need across the country. Additionally, he uses his for-profit business Activity Coins LLC to sponsor high performing young people into starting their own businesses, calling them Kid-Trepreneurs.

Class of 1994 | Apple Valley High School, Minnesota

Paper magazine named Maria Thayer one of the “Eight Women in Comedy that are Going to Take Over the World.” Maria received her television break in Strangers With Candy. She currently stars in the series Those Who Can’t. She also starred in the Adult Swim series Eagleheart. Her other television work includes roles in Brooklyn Nine-Nine, The Mindy Project, Review, Portlandia, Married, Difficult People, Man Seeking Woman, The League, Kroll Show, New Girl, Maron, Cougar Town, Arrested Development, and Gotham.

Her film credits include Night of The Living Deb, Fox Searchlight’s Table 19, State of Play, Steve Pink’s Accepted, Forgetting Sarah Marshall, Todd Solondz’s Storytelling, and the independent Let Go.

Thayer is a graduate of The Juilliard School. She lives in Los Angeles.

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Justin F. Kimball High School, Texas

Stephen Harold Tobolowsky is a character actor, author, and musician. Tobolowsky has appeared in more than 200 films plus many television projects. He is known for film roles such as annoying insurance agent Ned Ryerson in Groundhog Day and amnesiac Sammy Jankis in Christopher Nolan’s Memento, as well as such television characters as Commissioner Hugo Jarry (Deadwood), Bob Bishop (Heroes), Sandy Ryerson (Glee), Stu Beggs (Californication), and Action Jack Barker (Silicon Valley).

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Watch Stephen speak about celebrating National Speech and Debate Education Day!

Class of 1966 | Northwest Classen High School, Oklahoma

Elizabeth Ann Warren is an academic and politician. She is senior United States Senator from Massachusetts. Warren was formerly a professor of law and taught at the University of Texas School of Law, the University of Pennsylvania Law School, and most recently at Harvard Law School. A prominent scholar specializing in bankruptcy law, Warren was among the most cited in the field of commercial law before starting her political career. Warren is a leading figure in the Democratic Party and is popular among American progressives.

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Class of 1976 | Van Nuys High School, California

Judge Mark E. Windham attended UC Berkeley, where he debated on the NDT circuit. He coached and judged throughout college and was a teaching assistant in speech and debate classes at the university. In 1983, he graduated from UC Hastings Law School and practiced law for 24 years. Windham became a Deputy Public Defender, specializing in death penalty defense and scientific evidence, in particular forensic DNA testing, frequently writing and speaking on the subjects. In 2008, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger appointed him to the bench. Since then, he has served as Judge of the Superior Court for the County of Los Angeles and now supervises the criminal judges in the West District of Los Angeles County.

IN HIS WORDS | “I competed in speech and debate from 1974 to 1976 and made nationals in 1976. With a sense of gratitude for what I received, I am giving back to speech and debate: four years ago I started a speech and debate program at New Roads School in Santa Monica. It is gratifying to see the students learn; their tremendous success has been a plus. Our program continues to grow. High school speech and debate competitors impress me by their effort and commitment; this was instrumental to my own professional success; I assure you that it will contribute greatly to your own.”

Class of 1971 | East Nashville High School, Tennessee

Oprah Winfrey is a media proprietor, talk show host, actress, producer, publisher, and philanthropist. She is best known for her talk show The Oprah Winfrey Show, which was the highest-rated television program of its kind in history and was nationally syndicated from 1986 to 2011 in Chicago, Illinois. Dubbed the “Queen of All Media,” she has been ranked the richest African American and the greatest Black philanthropist in American history. In 2013, she was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Barack Obama.

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