Three members of Palo Alto High School’s debate team will travel to Dallas, Texas, to compete in the St. Mark’s Heart of Texas Tournament on Oct. 18 to Oct. 21.

Paly juniors Parker Devine and Travis Chen, along with senior Allen Zheng, will compete in this prestigious tournament, according to Jennie Savage, the director of Paly’s speech and debate program.

“It [St. Mark's] is a very small, very exclusive tournament,” Savage said.

Devine, Chen and Zheng certainly qualify in that respect, according to Savage.

“Travis Chen is up in the top four or five debaters in the country,” Savage said. “Allen Zheng has done really well this year.”

The trio is currently preparing for this upcoming tournament.

“We have practice every Tuesday and Thursday nights,” Savage said. “We go over strategies, we get the information from prior rounds that competed on the topic, we learn the argumentation of our opponent and we spend a lot of time gathering evidence. We do a lot of practice debate rounds.”

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