If you’ve ever walked in on a debate class with Upper School Debate coach Tom Fones, you will hear a lot of laughter erupting from the classroom. However, this debate team puts in its fair share of work as well, one of the many reasons it is, for the second year in a row, ranked the as the top debate team in the state of Minnesota for all private and public schools of any size.

Wood credits Fones’ unique approach to SPA debate as one factor of their success. “He is more focused on teaching a class and having people learn what debate has to offer, where as a lot of coaches at other school pick a select number of students and exclusively coach only these teams,” he said. “I think it’s cool that Mr. Fones teaches 70 students more about learning and having a good time and he can still have a #1 team in the state.”

Along with its first place ranking, the St. Paul Academy and Summit School Debate team is sending 2 teams to the section tournament, held on Jan. 11-12, and a separate national tournament, held on June 16-21. The teams representing SPA at the section tournament are junior Mason Mohring and senior Jeron Mariani, and seniors Sam Wood and Hagop Toghramadjian. Wood and H. Toghramadjian will also represent SPA at the national tournament along with senior Ibad Jafri and Thomas Toghramadjian.

H. Toghramadjian also holds the current ranking as the third ranked individual debater in the state. Wood credits this in part to the varying perspectives they bring to the team. “A lot of the resolutions have been politically charged in tournaments this year, so we’ve used the fact that I am fairly liberal and Hagop is fairly conservative and balanced out our approach to the topic,” he said.

As of now, the teams do not know what topic they will be debating at the national tournament. However, this weekends upcoming section tournament’s topic is On balance, the Supreme Court decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission harms the election process.