Thomas, Rolen bring home debating gold

Published or Revised April 20, 2007

Paris Junior College speech and drama students Jason Thomas of Bogata and Phillip Rolen of Paris took the national championship gold medal in parliamentary debate during the Phi Rho Pi National Forensics Championship Tournament in Houston April 9-14. "I hope that it will mean that the debate program is at PJC for good. I have gained more educational experience in my years of debating than in any other place in all of my life," said Thomas. Parliamentary debate is modeled after the British House of Commons floor debate. Students are presented a field of three topics upon entering the room, and each of the two teams gets an opportunity to eliminate one of the three. After a topic is decided, each team then gets 15 minutes to prepare before launching into a solid, hour-long, structured clash of ideas. Both students were teammates on the debate squad at Rivercrest High School in Bogata, and both served stints in the Air Force before being reunited on PJC's debate team. "Look, everyone should know I am just the mouthpiece here. Jason is the brains of the operation. He simply absorbs everything he reads, and he reads a heck of a lot," said Rolen, who who spent several months in Iraq in 2005 as a medical logistics technician with the 332nd Air Expeditionary Wing. "In all of our years debating we would bring home speaker award after speaker award," added Rolen. "Yet it seemed that we could never find the top of the precipice. All of that has changed now." The two have been friends since they were in the sixth grade. Students at two-year colleges from across the U.S. convene for one week annually at Phi Rho Pi to showcase a wide array of speaking, interpretative and dramatic talents. This year Paris Junior College sent students to compete in a large field of events, including poetry, speech to entertain, dramatic interpretative, duo interpretative and parliamentary debate. After a rough start of 1-2 in Houston, Thomas and Rolen roared back with five straight wins against teams from Florida, Illinois and California to claim the national title. Both credited their coaches, Ann Gerrity and Alex Peevy. "None of this would have happened without them," said Thomas. Rolen also credited his family. "I am here now because I have a wonderful wife who is willing to sacrifice so much in order to let me chase this dream," he said. "We have twin girls, Kaidy and Abby, and she is the one there holding down the fort while I am out there on the road." Thomas and Rolen, as well as Rolen's wife Amie, also a PJC student, plan to attend Montana State University at Billings, Mont., in the fall. PJC students Danyelle Lambert and Joshua Maxwell also competed in parliamentary debate and assisted the PJC Speech Department in bringing home the silver medal in the Phi Rho Pi, Wheeler Division, overall debate team sweepstakes.