We had a pretty amazing demonstration at Sertoma today. Most of us, except Tom Rosenberger who owned up to participating in his high school days at Cathedral, have never experienced high school debate.

Dave Pritchett brought his Lincoln Douglas Debate team to visit Sertoma today and Kellen Riley was the demonstrator for the memorized speech portion of the debate. Kellen is the son of Janelle and Ken Riley from Computer One. Soraya Hills, another member, is the daughter of Cheryal and Mike Hills. Kellen, along with Carmen Cummings won the sectional finals and went on to state competition. Their topic this year was “Democracy is best served by a strict separation of church and state.” Brainerd also has a policy debate team. Minnesota is one of the most difficult states to compete in because of the quality of the competition.

Many well-known people were high school or college debaters including Oprah Winfrey, Richard Nixon, Lyndon Johnson (who taught debate), Nelson Mandela, Kelsey Grammer and James Earl Jones to name just a few.

Coach Pritchet spent some time talking about the benefits of debate including promoting “critical thinking, research skills, organization, oral and written communication and increased reading skills.” After he explained the program and before he introduced Kellen he remarked, “It’s not a whole lot of time and students sometimes have to go as fast as humanly possible.” Kellen certainly demonstrated this skill. Since many debate programs go the way of the budget cuts, Mr. Pritchet encouraged everyone to support debate.

He got applause from Brian Kirkpatrick when he talked about an earlier job at Wells Fargo and cheers from the crowd when he jokingly said he left because the pay was so low. His best zinger was on himself. He described his first girlfriend and his attempt to be humorous by using one of his father’s favorite expressions—engaging is social intercourse meaning conversation. His girlfriend disappeared from the scene after that fateful phone call—social became mutual.

On the serious side, Close Converse has one location in Brainerd with 4 sales people and three assistants. The Company brokers commercial real estate, businesses, land and building development and investment and income properties. Chris specializes in business brokerage and leasing. He has been with the company 2 1/2 years.

Chris was born in Brainerd, spent some time in Iowa, attended the Carlson School of Management at the U of MN in 2002, and went on a mission trip to Botswana Africa in 2002 that seriously affected his life. He has been married for seven months to his wife Amber and his hobbies include piano, fishing, weight lifting, snowboarding, snowmobiling, and wakeboarding and church activities.

He joined Sertoma because it was an excellent opportunity to meet interesting people and an opportunity to really help the local community.

• Rumor has it that Tami Webb may be going back to work next week.
• We couldn’t decide whether Mike Boen was Mike Howard or vice versa today.
• Thanks to all who helped with the Aitkin Pipe and Drape, As Mr. Clausen stated, “Pipe and drape is kind of fun.”
• Steve Mau got a standing ovation (Gus counts as a standing ovation by himself right?) when he said it was his last announcement about the Valentine Party. He also got a “sander” fine for using the party to promote his business.
• Jeff Olson will be just as surprised when all the people Clausen invited to his house before the Valentine’s party show up as he was when he found out about the activity being held at the Camp.