On the evening of Saturday the 19th of January, the Brooks Quimby Debate Council closed the books on its second and final tournament of the season. As we look back on our High School and APDA tournaments with a mixture of pride and nostalgia, we cannot but celebrate our great success. This year, we hosted a rather unconventional APDA tournament. Instead of using our traditional February date, we opted for a weekend in January that was unopposed by any other tournament on the circuit. We hosted fifty competitors, many of who were top speakers on APDA. The smaller number and extremely high quality of the speakers made for a very interesting dynamic of intense competition in an intimate setting. As is tradition with Bates debate tournaments, we ran on schedule, thanks to our amazing tab director Zach Oren '09, and threw a legendary party in Chase Hall on Friday night. Hosted in the Little Room, we treated the debaters to the musical stylings of DJ Arsalan Suhail '09, who opened for Bates' own Greg Waters Band.

After two more competitive rounds on Saturday followed by impressive break rounds, we finally paired down to our final round, with teams from Yale and MIT. Representing the government, Yale presented a case that put a new spin on the old topic of active euthanasia. After much deliberation, the judges voted for MIT in a 6-3 decision. Following our awards ceremony, everyone was able to leave at 7:00 p.m. Our tournament was on time, entertaining, and fair and the number of compliments were received from other teams has been staggering. When all the awards were handed out and the last rooms were cleaned, we could not help but feel pride for another Brooks Quimby success. We could not have done any of it without the help of our team and alumni and thank them all for their outstanding efforts and continued support. We wish much luck to our successors and anticipate another year of tournament triumph.