Bellaire Debate
| Ranked number 1 in the nation out of 2,700 high schools by the National Forensic League. |
A mission statement
or quote about the
firm.
or quote about the
firm.
| Navigation Bar Placeholder |
Bellaire Debate
| Ranked number 1 in the nation out of 2,700 high schools by the National Forensic League. |
| Member of the National Forensic League since 1955. |
 |
| |
 |
| |
 |
| |
 |
| |
 |
| |
 |
| |
 |
| |
 |
| |
 |
Bellaire Advances at
UIL CX State
Bellaire Debate sent two CX teams to the 96th annual University Interscholastic League (UIL)
State Tournament held on the University of Texas campus March 17-18. David Li and Liang
Liu represented Bellaire as well as Kyle Bean and Jason Leva. Both teams had records of 3
wins and 1 loss in the preliminary rounds. David and Liang narrowly missed advancing based
on speaker points. Kyle Bean earned the gold gavel award as the top speaker in class 5A.
Bean and Leva advanced to octofinals and lost to Hightower High School on a 2-1 decision.
3rd Place in CX Debate
at TFA State
Bellaire Debate competed successfully
at the TFA State tournament March 2-
4 at Pharr San Juan Alamo High
School. 53 students made the 6 hour
trip to State. As a squad Bellaire
earned 33 TFA State qualifications
which was good for 5th most in
the state. Amongst those qualifications
Bellaire set a new record with 18
CX teams qualified for State.
Additionally Bellaire qualified 11
Lincoln Douglas debaters which was
also the highest number of any school in the state. After five preliminary rounds Bellaire
advanced two CX teams to elimination rounds. Alessia Bhargava and Daniel Zhang advanced
but lost their double octofinals round on a split decision. Henry Tsai and Alec Swafford
earned third place in CX debate. After going 5-0 in prelim rounds, Tsai & Swafford won
their double octofinal and octofinal rounds. Their next opponent was Greenhill School. Henry
& Alec's 3-0 victory over Greenhill was the talk of the tournament. They did not have long
to savor the victory before losing semifinals on a split decision. Alessia Bhargava earned 6th
overall speaker in CX debate. Others advancing to elimination rounds include Chris Williams to
quarterfinals of Domestic Extemp, Muthu Alagappan to
semifinals of Domestic Extemp and Yan Largman to triple
octofinals of Lincoln Douglas debate. The 2005 TFA State
Champion in the Student Congress Senate chamber
advanced to the final round again in 2006 but fell short of
repeating as State Champion. The future looks bright for
Bellaire Debate. A number of students who participated
in the 2006 TFA State tournament will be back next year and
have the opportunity to add to their performance at this
year's State tournament.
CX Debaters advance to FINAL FOUR of NPPF
For the second consecutive year Bellaire Debaters have advanced to the "Final Four" of the
2006 National Public Policy Forum (NPPF). Russell Rach coached Yue Guan, David Li,
Elaine Hsu, Liang Liu, Daniel Petkevich, and Jason Leva who defeated Rufus King International
Baccalaureate High School from Milwaukee, Wisconsin. The other three schools joining
Bellaire in the Final Four are Maize High School from Maize, Kansas; Plano Senior High from
Plano, Texas; and Alexander W. Dreyfoos Jr. School for the Arts from West Palm Beach,
Florida.
The National Public Policy Forum is the only national contest that gives high school students
across the nation the opportunity to participate in written and oral debates on issues of public
policy. The school advanced to the elimination round after it submitted a qualifying round essay
that was judged to be one of the best in the nation. Bellaire defeated Leland High School from
California in quarterfinals en route to being the only school from the 2005 NPPF to return to the
Final Four in 2006.
The topic for the NPPF is "Resolved: The United States federal government should substantially
limit its ability to detain individuals without charge." As one of the Final Four schools, Bellaire
students will now receive an all expense paid trip to New York City to participate in the finals at
New York University April 21-23, 2006. Finalists are honored during a special banquet and
awards ceremony, and their schools will receive cash prizes up to $5,000. The NPPF was
founded by the Bickel & Brewer Foundation in 2001 and is now jointly administered New York
University. Further information on the competition can be found at
http://www.bickelbrewer.com/index.php?id= debate .
Bellaire completes successful regular season
The regular season is now over and Bellaire Debate has qualified more debate entries to the
Texas Forensic Association (TFA) State Tournament than any other school in Texas. Our entry
for the 2006 TFA State tournament includes 18 CX debate teams, 11 LD entries, 3 US
Extempers and 1 Student Congress. TFA State will be held at San Juan Pharr Alamo HS
March 2-4, 2006. The following students qualified for TFA State:
CCX CLD
Matt Abedi/Arnav Chakravarty Muthu Alagappan
Kyle Bean/Elaine Hsu Umar Alam
Alessia Bhargava/Daniel Zhang Karishma Dara
Chris Fan/Satish Vemuri Daniel Gwen
Jenny Fan/ Shubha Soman Anand Habib
Xinxin Feng/Kim Zhou Raghu Hariharan
Andrew Garbarino/Nicholas Garbarino Gustavo Herrera
Zachary Garber/Daniel Petkevich Yan Largman
Yue Guan/Danila Kabotyanski Karthik Prasad
Joseph Lee/Aaron Ru Chris Williams
Jason Leva/Ingrid Su Xi Zhang
David Li/ Liang Liu
Chian Lin/Cheney Tsai USX
Zexing Meng/Jacob Uzman Muthu Alagappan
Renuka Rege/Saloni Singh Gustavo Herrera
Seth Romo/Ye-Kyung Song Chris Williams
Alec Swafford/Henry Tsai
Xinxin Wang/Evelyn Zhang Student Congress
Gustavo Herrera
Lamar HS tournament results February 10-11
1st Place Overall Sweepstakes
CCX CCX Speaker Awards
Andrew Garbarino/Nick Garbarino 1st place Kyle Bean 1st place
Kyle Bean/Elaine Hsu 2nd place Kristy Hong 2nd place
Matt Abedi/Arnav Chakravarty semifinals Xinxin Wang 3rd place
Kristy Hong/William Hong quarterfinals Andrew Garbarino 4th place
Xinxin Feng/Kim Zhou quarterfinals Vijay Kasschau 5th place
Daniel Hyman/Adam Kaiser octofinals Daniel Hyman 6th place
Vijay Kasschau/David Chan octofinals Kim Zhou 7th place
Nick Garbarino 8th place
Arnav Chakravarty 9th place
CLD CLD Speaker Awards
Raghu Hariharan 2nd place Umar Alam 1st place
Steven Maheshwary semifinals Raghu Hariharan 3rd place
Jonathan Chang semifinals
Umar Alam quarterfinals
Thomas Lei quarterfinals
Sailesh Prabhu octofinals
Dulles HS tournament results February 10-11
CCX
Alec Swafford/Henry Tsai quarterfinals
Katy Taylor HS tournament results February 3-4
3rd place overall sweepstakes
CCX NCX
Yue Guan/Danila Kabotyanski 1st Place Fanny Briceno/Ying Zhang semifinals
Chris Fan/ Satish Vemuri 2nd place Michelle Wang/Yi Zhang semifinals
Xinxin Wang/Evelyn Yang quarterfinals Akia Pichon/Ana Vasquez-Trejo quarters
CLD NLD
Will Chambers octofinals Hao Wang octofinals
Jennifer Choi double octofinals
Patrick Lu double octofinals
Jeremy Yang double octofinals
Yixin Xia double octofinals
Kaili Zhang double octofinals
Alief Taylor HS tournament results January 27-28
3rd place overall sweepstakes
CCX NCX
Jenny Fan/Shubha Soman 2nd place Shanna Chu/Ying Zhang 2nd place
Chian Lin/Cheney Tsai semifinals Fulel Haque/Ana Vasquez-Trejo quarters
Zexing Meng/Jacob Uzman semifinals
Vijay Kasschau/David Chan quarterfinals
CLD NLD
Anand Habib octofinals Hao Wang octofinals
Jonathan Chang double octofinals
DX Student Congress
Gustavo Herrera 1st Place Gustavo Herrera 4th place
Anand Habib 1st place CLD speaker award
Kempner HS tournament results January 20-21
CCX NCX
Renuka Rege/Saloni Singh quarterfinals Leena Warsi/Rachel Lewis 2nd place
CLD NLD
Neal Bennett octofinals Michael Dotsey quarterfinals
Raghu Hariharan octofinals Ashley Tsai quarterfinals
Umar Alam double octofinals Kaylor Wright quarterfinals
Jonathan Chang double octofinals Andrew Huynh octofinals
Michael Gottesman double octofinals Dennis Qian octofinals
Kaili Zhang octofinals
Public Forum Douglas Jin double octofinals
Amy Lin/Yanran Lu semifinals
Aldine HS tournament results January 20-21
CCX CLD
Matthew Liu/Chloe Wood quarterfinals Matthew Hodge octofinals
Andrew Garbarino/Nick Garbarino quarterfinals
Chian Lin/Cheney Tsai quarterfinals
Brendan Fradkin/Herbie Wei octofinals
National Academic Recognition & Perfect Test Scores for Bellaire
Debaters
Eight members of the Bellaire Debate squad earned National Merit Scholar semifinalist
recognition this year. Kyle Bean, Alessia Bhargava, Yue Guan, Gary Hu, Joseph Lee, Henry
Tsai, Chris Williams and Kylene Wood received the honor. Additionally, Kyle Bean and
Kylene Wood scored perfect scores on their PSAT, the test that determines National Merit
Scholar semifinalists. Kylene also had a perfect score on her ACT. Click here to read the
Houston Chronicle story about Kylene's ACT score.
