The Donahoe Debate Tournament

The Donahoe Debate Tournament hosted by Sacred Heart School has been a longstanding fixture in the Nova Scotia Debate season as a tournament that draws students from across the Maritime provinces. After a four-year hiatus due to a pause in in-person debating, it was exciting to see the Donahoe Tournament back on the calendar. We are grateful to the organizers of this event who created a high calibre weekend of debate to wrap up our 2023-24 season.

We had nine students representing KES at Sacred Heart School in Halifax this weekend. Natha Etou Obami '27 and Tinotenda Nyazvigo '28 deserve a huge high-five for fearlessly meeting four rounds of challenging debate in their second tournament of the season with perhaps 10 practices under their belts.

Sokha Ebert '30 and Max Proctor '27 deserve congrats, Sokha for being the youngest competitor who holds his own with a ferocious love of debate and grit when it comes to competing against debaters with both age and experience in their favour – and Max deserves a huge congrats for placing top five in his category, in his third time competing.

Joshua Oyebanji '29 and Ruari Ryan '29 equally showed up as a force to be reckoned with immense bravery. You don’t often see the younger ends of middle school attending competitions, instead choosing to develop skills within the safety of in-house debate practice for a few years before hitting the competitive circuit. Our Juniors however have a love of challenge and have formed an incredibly supportive Grade 6/7 crew of debaters that want to stretch themselves. Ruari and Josh did just that, learning an immense amount from the in-room feedback they received each round.

Julien Gingras '27 and Ray-Ray Gingras '26 have become infamous in the Nova Scotia debate scene for their charisma, performative debate style, and incredible talent. They are some of the youngest debaters in the senior category but placed eighth (Julien) and third (Ray-Ray) in speakers score and made it to the semi-finals which is impressive for the calibre this tournament draws. Keep an eye on these two – they are sure to represent us at the national level in the years to come.

It has been a busy season with 15 tournaments over the year, both local and international, posing varying levels of challenge, and the Donahoe Tournament is our end of season wrap up with only Junior Nationals (Altyn Hood '29/Sokha) and Senior Nationals (Vinnie Armstrong '25/Will Larder '26) as our final tournaments at the end of May.

The debate team is a flexible family with over 35 students who engage in varying levels, but there is a buzz this year that tells me that we are on the precipice of immense growth and some moments of magic in the years to come.