IDAHO GOES DOWN Last week, a group of high school students made Idaho history by competing in a national speech and debate contest.
During the weeklong tournament in Des Moines, Iowa, 6,700 students countrywide competed, including two teams of five students from different high schools in eastern Idaho. One squad finished sixth overall, while the other came in second.
The Idaho Mountain River District, which organizes and manages the student teams in our area, recently elected Joseph Tyler, the head speech and debate coach at Century High School, as its chairman. For the first time ever, Tyler, who coached the team that finished second in the tournament, is overjoyed to see Idaho students take home a significant honor at a national competition.
For a century, this incident has been occurring. Tyler informs EastIdahoNews.com that this has never occurred in Idaho’s history of competing in this event.
He has been working with these children for months, as has Jett Smith, the coach of the fifth-place team at Highland High School. Seeing the students’ progress and improvement as a consequence of their efforts has been satisfying for them.
Tyler says, “We’re really happy to see all of their hard work and dedication pay off in such an important way.”
Numerous more students from the area also received honors. According to the National Speech and Debate Association’s official results, a Chinese team won first place. A Montana squad advanced to the tournament’s quarterfinals.
Local kids who competed in the national debate tournament and took home prizes. | Photo courtesy of Joseph Tyler
Results of the National Speech and Debate Tournament in 2025 | Website screenshot
Madilynn Evans played for the second-place squad. Since her freshman year, she has participated in speech and debate at Madison High School in Rexburg, where she recently received her diploma.
She never imagined that she would make it to the last round.
I’ve always thought that getting to nationals was the main objective. Once you arrived at Nationals, it seemed impossible to move forward. Everyone there is extremely talented, and the competition is extremely difficult. Evans says, “I never thought I’d be able to accomplish it.”
She finds it completely absurd that no one from Idaho has ever done this.
Evan recalls how she first became involved in debate, saying she did so because it seemed like a pleasant way to complete a requirement for graduation. She found the academic and social elements enjoyable and quickly learned that participation in a tournament was mandatory. When she and her rival performed so well in the first year, she became enamored.
Evans claims that taking part in speech and debate has significantly enhanced her capacity for analysis and public speaking.
Evans and her group were given the following subject to discuss in the final debate: The alliance on regional security alliances is regretted by this house. A prominent scientific and healthcare platform defines regional security alliances as a collaborative arrangement between two or more nations with the goal of enhancing security and stability. One illustration of a regional security alliance is NATO.
At the time of assignment, Evans knew very little about this subject. Without much warning, she and her teammates presented the other side of this debate. They were presented with four subjects earlier in the competition, but they were never given the opportunity to argue any of them.
It would have been far more scary if they had only been given one hour’s notice before the debate, which is how little notice some of the debates received. It didn’t feel particularly frightening because we prepared for it all night before the final rounds, Evans explains.
Maleah Dilworth, a recent Soda Springs High School graduate, played for the fifth-place team. This house would prohibit nations that routinely violate human rights from holding international athletic events, according to the theme they were given. Additionally, they were on the other side of the debate, thus they had to defend the non-ban of these nations.
Dilworth, like Evans, knew little about the subject and had little warning. A fantastic way to wrap up high school debate was to place fifth on the national stage.
Maleah Dilworth on the left, rehearsing with a partner for a discussion. | Courtesy Dilworth, Maleah
Dilworth is thinking about going to college debate, even though she will miss all the weekends she spent with her friends and the debate team coaches.
Dilworth intends to double major in social work and political science at Idaho State University in Pocatello. Attending law school and becoming an attorney is her ultimate dream.
Evans intends to major in psychology at Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah.
Evans thanks her coaches for making the debate team such a fulfilling experience as she gets ready for the next phase of her life.
We kids wouldn’t be able to accomplish much without our debate and speech coaches. She claims that they are largely responsible for our achievement.
According to Tyler, every team made enough progress to be guaranteed a spot in the national tournament the next year. There is room for new students when two seniors depart each squad.
They were granted permission to invite two more teams the next year due to their performance at the national event. In 2026, Tyler is thrilled to be leading 14 new pupils to the national debate.
According to Tyler, we had the most teams of any district in the country—four—going to the national tournament the next year.
