June 30, 2021—Cypress Lakes High School junior Anastasia Sewell won the Class 6A Lincoln-Douglas Debate State Championship, held virtually on May 26.

Lincoln-Douglas Debate, also referred to as values debate, conducted in a one-on-one format. The format focuses more on the “why” of the question posed, as opposed to the “what” from traditional cross-examination debates. Sewell competed virtually against Allen High School’s Shreya Nair. Topics are given ahead of time and students must prepare their series of speeches and arguments.

“CFISD has a long history of success at the UIL State Meet,” said UIL Academics District Coordinator Ryan Hennessey. “Students from our district frequently compete at the highest levels. However, this is Cypress Lakes’ first UIL 6A State Championship in Lincoln-Douglas Debate. All of the hard work that Anastasia and Ms. Hannah McCord put into preparing for UIL certainly paid off. Anastasia has made all of us exceptionally proud.”

Visit the UIL Speech and Debate website for more information.