Kansas History - Summer 2005 (Vol. 28, No. 2) Claudia J. Keenan,
"'Not as an End in Itself': The Development of Debate in Kansas
High Schools." Read this article online During the second decade
of the twentieth century high school debate came into its own,
and "a pattern of small towns achieving debate success" emerged.
Rural communities such as the southwest Kansas town of Ashland
produced many state champions-"a phenomenon," observes Dr.
Claudia J. Keenan, Emory and Henry College, Emory, Virginia,
"that reflected in part the bullishness toward academics in
Ashland and other Kansas communities that eventually would
nurture debate champions." Country high schools, which dominated
statewide debate competitions until the 1920s, "emphasized the
college preparatory work, which began to flourish in American
public high schools after the turn of the twentieth century,"
and this "program complemented the intensity and competitiveness
that became characteristic of debate." Keenan gives much
attention to the part play