We would like to start off with a huge congratulations to every participant at the Stanford-hosted Palm Classic International Speech and Debate Tournament.
Participants and judges hailed from around the country and world, representing 4 different time zones.
This was an incredibly competitive invitational and the students have been hard at work on their cases and individual speeches.
Another massive thank you to our judges, your efforts and commitment allowed us to compete in the first place.
Kudos was represented in break rounds by several speakers at this tournament, and I want to extend a specific congratulations to those students.

Let’s start with Congress. The Congress team competed in the Varsity division, which meant that the rounds contained students up to the 12th grade. Getting experience competing against high schoolers and succeeding is amazing. Huge congratulations to the entire congress team! With that being said, three students advanced into the semi and final rounds! Claire Wen made it into the semi finals! In the FINAL round of Varsity, Anne Liu placed 12th and Serena Guo placed 7th! Keep up the great work debaters!

Moving on to Lincoln Douglas. Kudos debater Sophia Ren made it all the way to the semi-final round of the Middle School Division. Out of 40 entries she broke into the top 8. On a 5-1 preliminary record, Sophia broke to quarterfinals then to semifinals, also securing 4th place overall speaker award! (This is a separate award based on speaker points not record).
W want to also extend a large thank you to Yanzi Feng, who had an impressive preliminary record of 4-2 and just barely missed the competitive break. Sh
e stayed to support and help prep Sophia for her break rounds, sharing cards and strategies she learned at the tournament. This is what being a team is all about.

I want to also congratulate the Public Forum team for running great arguments and powering through such a competitive tournament. Our after round discussions were incredibly productive and every one of our competitors is extremely bright. With our continued work, break rounds are just around the corner!

And finally, a big thank you to the parents. With your support throughout the year, bringing students to class, getting up early on the weekends to help get ready for tournaments, and helping them with research, all your work is appreciated.

This tournament is a long tradition in the competitive debate community and Kudos was proud to represent Southern California. We are looking forward to our upcoming tournaments at Harvard and SCJFL #3.