The Smithfield High School debate team has met with success at the state championship, returning with one state champion and a runner-up team.

In her division, Grace Reon, a senior, won first place in the Lincoln-Douglas division, while Sidney Jones and Joseph McNure, sophomore and senior, respectively, teamed up for second in Public Forum.

The Smithfield High team was second overall in the Virginia High School League State Championships, held at Liberty University in Lynchburg April 24-25.

“We are now the only team in the state to place in the top 4 at the State Championships in each of the last five years,” said Todd Kessler, debate team coach.

When he arrived in 2008, Smithfield High hadn’t had a debate team since the early 1990s, the history teacher said.

After coaching the debate team at his previous school, Kessler was keen to get one started.

Administration and the athletics department all got on board, he said, and the club has been growing each year to hover now at 20 to 25 active members.

The Smithfield High team has won both its conference and regional tournaments for five consecutive years.

For the 2015 state championships, it had more qualifiers than any other team in Virginia for the second straight year, Kessler added.

Reon — not Smithfield High’s first state champion debater — said her topic was whether or not governments should ensure food security for their people. “You have to prepare speeches and arguments for both sides,” she said.

The competition format is eight 45-minute rounds, Reon noted. In the final round, she faced off against a Harrisonburg student.

Top-level high school debate competitions are trending more toward “evidence-based arguments,” according to Reon. “It creates a more interesting argument,” she added.

Though the VHSL competition stops at the state level, Reon has earned a nationals berth in the National Catholic Forensics League. That competition will be held on Fort Lauderdale, Fla., on Memorial Day weekend.

Debating helps students develop analytical and critical-thinking skills “that will highly benefit them not only in AP classes but also when they move onto college,” Kessler said.

The public speaking aspects boost their confidence “to tremendous heights that you don’t really see in average students,” he said.

“They are more likely to become leaders.”

Kessler said he has a lot of debate-team alumni in or applying for law school and medical school. “They set their career goals extremely high, and a lot of them are on their way,” he said.