TWIN FALLS, Idaho — The College of Southern Idaho is known for its athletic achievements, but tucked away in the Hepworth Building is a trophy room that tells another story of sustained excellence — one built by the CSI Speech and Debate team over more than 50 years.
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While the CSI gym showcases the history of its sports programs, including over 25 basketball and volleyball national championships, the speech and debate program has been quietly racking up its own hardware since 1972.
Andy Orr, coach of the CSI Speech and Debate team, said the program has deep roots on campus.
"The speech and debate team was started in 1972... just after the college was founded," Orr said.
Over those five decades, the team has competed in events across the country, taking on other two-year colleges and major four-year universities, and has consistently brought home top honors.
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"We do conference tournaments; we call them designated conference tournaments for the Northwest Forensics Conference throughout the year, and then at the end of the year we travel to national tournaments for different speech and debate organizations," Orr said.
The team's most recent tournament was held at the University of Utah, where the Golden Eagles added even more to their collection.
Avery McClymonds, CSI Speech Captain, said the results spoke for themselves.
"We got second in the speech sweepstakes, we got first in the debate sweepstakes, and we were first overall in the sweepstakes – taking both speech and debate into account," McClymonds said.
McClymonds and CSI Debate Captain Madison Pritchard are two of the team's top performers, with strong results at last year's community college Phi Rho Pi National Tournament to back it up.
"Last year, Avery and I brought home the bronze from the national tournament for team debate, as well as won the most outstanding debaters award," Pritchard said.
With that track record, Pritchard and McClymonds are looking to repeat at this year's Phi Rho Pi National Tournament, which will take place in Washington, D.C., in April.
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For Orr, the program's success reflects something bigger about what CSI has to offer its students.
"For us to be able to contribute to that in really this meaningful way – bringing recognition to the college – helps us understand that every student at CSI has something to offer... and every student can get something out of CSI in a way that is meaningful to them," Orr said.
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