photo by: Contributed

Free State High School's Sophie Racy and speech and debate partner Connor Brown display plaques earned for their qualification to the National Speech and Debate Tournament.

Over the past four years, Free State High School’s Sophie Racy has accumulated more competition points than 97% of all high school speech and debate students. That dedication recently paid off when she was awarded the Degree of Premier Distinction, the highest honor bestowed on high school students by the National Speech and Debate Association.

To be eligible for the award, a student needs to earn at least 1,500 competition points. A maximum of six points can be earned per round. According to information from the Lawrence school district, Racy has competed in more than 400 rounds since her freshman year.

“It’s a nice reflection to see how much I’ve participated and how much I’ve worked for this,” Racy told the Journal-World. “So that was definitely exciting.”

Racy, who also participates in forensics, said the immersive research she has conducted in preparation for competition has helped shape her worldview and has taught her “a lot about how to analyze society from different perspectives.”

One of her fondest memories as she looks back on her debate career was taking the stage at the Tournament of Champions, a high-profile competition hosted by the University of Kentucky. Racy is Kansas’ first three-time qualifier in the event.

“It’s very exciting to be able to compete on a national level,” she said. “… It’s a level of competition and learning that you don’t really get on a local circuit, with so many people from around the nation that have all these ideas that you’ve never heard before. … so it’s always new education.”

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photo by: Contributed

The Free State High School four-speaker debate team displays the award for a runner-up regional finish. From left: Oliver Frederick, Gilly Falin, Connor Brown, Sophie Racy, Olive Minor and Anwen Williams.

Fresh off a second-place regional finish, Free State’s debate team qualified for the Class 6A State Debate Championship for a seventh consecutive year. As a sophomore, Racy placed second at state in the two-speaker division. She placed runner-up at state last year in the four-speaker division. She is also a four-time qualifier for the National Speech and Debate Tournament.

Racy thinks Free State is well-equipped to succeed at the state event next week in Olathe.

“This is such a collaborative activity, and it’s super cool to have all these teammates that you can work with,” Racy said. “We’ve developed a lot of arguments. We’re familiar with the topic and confident in our ability to compete well.”

This year’s debate resolution — the topic assigned for competition — is of particular interest to Racy. The resolution relates to whether fiscal redistribution should be increased in the United States through various means, such as the expansion of Social Security, establishing a universal basic income or adopting a federal jobs guarantee. What interested her the most as she did the the research, she said, were the possibilities related to a universal basic income, a social welfare proposal that would essentially transfer cash payments to citizens without any strings attached.

“Just learning the different ways that the government can utilize taxing, transferring and using those forms of spending to create different programs that can benefit people” she found fascinating, she said.

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photo by: Contributed

Free State senior, Sophie Racy.

Racy said that some of the moments she most appreciates involve bonding with teammates while traveling to events and through various activities, such as monthly “Squad Nights,” organized by the debate team.

“It’s those kind of moments where it’s nice to step away from the research and spend time with teammates without having to have scholarly discussions,” she said. “Just being able to be around them as friends rather than teammates, which is a reminder that I always have someone in my corner.”

Racy said several influences helped to cultivate her interest in debate, including her older brothers, who debated for Lawrence High, as well as her mother, “who is the most intelligent person I know.” She said that her debate skills could be traced to sibling rivalry arguments with her brothers. She’s impressed with their “crazy ambitions” to become lawyers.

“I always wanted to be like them growing up, so the second I got to high school, I knew that I was going to do the exact same activity they did,” she said.

Racy also had high praise for Free State debate coach Kelly Thompson, whom she described as a mentor and master motivator.

“I genuinely believe that I would not be anywhere near as successful as I have been without him,” she said. “You can tell he really cares about the team.”

During tense moments before tournaments, she said, “when you’re trying to determine what the round will look like,” Thompson delivers the same piece of advice each time: “Be smart, have fun — but if you have to choose, choose to have fun.”

“It’s always a moment of relief to remember that debate is so much more than just the competition,” she said, “and that advice I think helps me subconsciously and gives me a little boost.”

Racy hopes to follow in the footsteps of several former teammates and debate at the college level. While she is currently undecided on which school she’ll attend, she plans to major in sociology and eventually get a law degree.