HURON — The HHS Speech & Debate Team traveled to the second Central Forensic Conference (CFC) Tournament held at SF Washington High School on Saturday, Jan. 5.
Current CFC Standings after two of three conference tournaments are:
1- Brookings (228 points)
2- Mitchell (143)
3- SF O’Gorman (135)
4- Huron (133)
5- Yankton (115)
6- Harrisburg (89)
7- Lennox (82)

8- SF Washington (70)
9- Forest Lake (48)
10- SF Christian (47)
11- SF Lincoln (33)
12- Dakota Valley (12)
Top finishers from Huron were:
• In Programmed Oral Interp, Jasmine Snow finished first
• In Informative Speaking, Danci Dunkelberger placed third
• In Humorous Interp, Reese Uecker finished fourth
• In Student Congress, Cooper Johnson finished fifth
• In Duet Interp, Asia Bindert & Jayden Ritter placed second and Katie Schoenfelder & Jenna Zieres placed fifth
“We lost some entries due to illness Saturday morning and that made it hard to make up ground in the CFC standings,” said head coach Mitch Gaffer. “Illness meant we had no entries in Varsity Extemp and Varsity Oratory, and it weakened our entries in Varsity Public Forum Debate and Informative.  
“Still, we had some strong performances and were able to pick up a bit in the CFC standings,” he added. “We were able to pick up a placing in the standings and are well within our goal of finishing in the top three after the final CFC Tournament.”
Gaffer said the speech events anchored the team by giving them a number of final round finishers.  
“In debate, we are struggling with the new resolutions,” he said. “The Public Forum Debate resolution deals with debt reduction and economic growth, while the LD Debate resolution is about giving military aid to authoritarian regimes. Both are tough ideas to understand, but we will continue to learn and refine our cases.”
The next tournament for the Speech & Debate Team will be the SF Lincoln Silver Bowl Tournament on Jan. 11-12. The team takes the following week off for final tests.