A National Debate Tournament committee selected a KU team that includes a Free State High School graduate as the university’s third pairing to attend the competition.
Brooklyn Hato, a graduate of Shawnee Mission South High School, and AJ Persinger, an FSHS graduate, will join two other KU debate teams that automatically qualified for the NDT from March 26 to 31 in Houston. KU has won this prestigious debate competition six times.
The Hato-Persinger duo finished out their season ranked 16th in the country, having won more than 76% of their debates, according to a KU news release. Hato and Persinger are also president and treasurer of the KU Debate squad, respectively.
“Qualifying to the NDT as a third team is very difficult because the NDT only allows up to six schools to qualify a third team to the 78-team pool,” Scott Harris, director of KU Debate, said in the release. “To qualify as a third team, you must be one of the top-six third teams in the country. Brooklynn and AJ had an excellent season, and we are very proud of their accomplishments.”
The other two teams are Rose Larson, of Milwaukee, and Luna Schultz, of Houston, and Owen Owings, of Lee’s Summit, Missouri, and Zach Willingham, of Topeka.
KU has now qualified three teams for 11 years in a row. This year, Emory University, the University of Michigan, Michigan State University, Northwestern University and the University of Texas-Dallas are also sending three teams to the competition.
The KU team has qualified for the NDT 74 of the tournament’s 80 years, including every year since 1968. The team most recently won the tournament in 2018 and have finished as runner-up the last two seasons.
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