Kate Eckert had very little idea as to what debate was all about when she signed up for it as a freshman at Seaman High School.
 
“My mom did it and she had a lot of fun,” Eckert said. “She talked more about the forensics side of it, but I wasn’t really into acting. But the community she talked about and the people she met were lifelong friends, so for me, it was about finding a community at the high school.”
 
Plus …
 
“Many a teacher has told me I have a big mouth,” she joked. “So I thought it might pay off.”
 
Not only did debate allow Eckert to find her community at Seaman, it also transformed that once-perceived “big mouth” into an even bigger voice – both in the debate arena and in the school. The Viking senior has evolved into one of the top debaters in the state and last weekend, along with teammate Kylie Weir, finished runner-up in Two-Speaker at the Class 5A state tournament at Olathe North High School.
 
The showing was the best for a Seaman team since the duo of Jessica Rezac and Joe Eisenbarth won the Class 5A state title in 2004.
 
Eckert is this week’s CapFed® True Blue® Student of the Week.
 
“She’s the kind of student that debate is enticing for,” said Zach Dinges, who was Eckert’s debate coach at Seaman during her freshman and sophomore years and now is an assistant coach and speech teacher at Topeka West. “She’s naturally intelligent, inquisitive and I think just looks for ways to challenge herself and debate is a great way to do that.”
 
Dinges saw that passion from Eckert almost immediately. Eckert’s freshman season wasn’t exactly the ideal environment to foster a passion for the activity. The 2021 season came with COVID restrictions still in place, relegating competitions to Zoom meetings and much of the prep work and practices conducted virtually.
 
“I lost a lot of great kids that year because it just wasn’t easy,” Dinges said. “But she hung in there. I think she saw the value of what we were doing and realized she had a place in that world and could go far. When a lot of kids gave up and said this isn’t what I thought it was going to be – because it wasn’t – she hung in there and I really applaud her for that.”
 
Eckert credited Dinges for having a quick influence on her decision to throw herself into debate as a freshman. It also helped that the topic that year was something that really spoke to her.
 
“The resolution was really excellent my freshman year,” Ekcert said. “It was about reforming the criminal justice system and that was really relevant at the time. I was drawn to that aspect of it. And I was drawn to just how much I learned about the world.
 
“I say I was immediately into it. I always wanted to be a lawyer and the aspects of learning about rhetoric were interesting to me. Not to flex, but I was pretty good at it immediately, too.”
 
Her freshman season she also met Seaman upperclassman Hannah Mott and immediately felt a connection to her older counterpart.
 
“When I was a sophomore, she took me under her wing and taught me so much about debate and the world in general,” Eckert said of Mott, who now debates for the University of Kansas, one of the top programs in the country and one Eckert hopes to join next season. “I don’t see a lot of people like me being successful. But I met her and she was exactly like me and she was doing things that I always dreamed of. She was making an impact at our school and I really looked up to her because I saw myself in her.
 
“She’s still one of my closest friends today. She’s going to change the world and I’m excited I got to learn from her and meet her.”
 
Their bond extended beyond debate and a project they started together at Seaman High School has come to fruition with Eckert’s continued persistence in seeing it through.
 
During the 2021-22 debate season, Eckert and Mott noticed something about the various high schools at which they were competing.
 
“We’d gone to three schools in a month and all of them had free period products in their women’s bathrooms,” Eckert said. “And we were like, ‘Why don’t we see this at our school?’ We advocated for it at the district level and it didn’t get anywhere.”
 
But Eckert never gave up on the project, even when Mott graduated at the end of that school year. She researched period poverty in communities and conducted surveys within the high school. She discovered the 36% of the girls she surveyed didn’t have direct access to period products.
 
“It was definitely a relevant need in our community,” she said.
 
Eckert applied for and received a $2,000 grant from Stay785, an initiative of the Topeka Youth Commission that gives grants to youth-led projects to improve the Shawnee County community. Eckert raised additional funds through private donations after speaking to a variety of service clubs as well as through a GoFundMe page she started.
 
In all, she raised roughly $5,000 that not only has secured dispensers for free products (tampons and pads) to replace the old vending-style dispensers. The funding for the school will last forever.
 
“It meant so much to me,” said Eckert, who is still trying to advocate for similar dispensers at the middle school and perhaps elementary schools. “There was a lot of roadblocks we faced along the way, a lot of opposition surprisingly. But someone just a few days ago said, ‘Hey the dispensers look great!’ And I was like, ‘Oh my god!’ because I hadn’t seen them yet. When I went into the bathroom I shed a few tears because not only did I finish Hannah’s legacy but also this can help potentially thousands of young women who come through this high school.”
 
Eckert’s desire to ensure her fellow classmates at Seaman are having their needs met and addressed extends further. 
 
Throughout her freshman and sophomore years at Seaman, controversy swirled at the high school surrounding the founder and namesake of the school, Fred Seaman, who was discovered to have been a leader in the Ku Klux Klan. The topic of potentially renaming the high school was extremely divisive in the Seaman community with the school ultimately deciding to keep the Seaman name, but remove his likeness from the school and disassociate any reference to him.
 
Eckert took it upon herself to help start a new club at the school, the Equity Action Network, in November 2020. The club’s purpose is to learn about the social and academic experiences of students of color in a predominantly white school and develop a system to capture the student experiences and perceptions.
 
“There was a need for a club that ensures our school supports DEI (Diversity, Equity and Inclusion) programs and efforts,” she said. “I think there was a very obvious gaping dichotomy in the Seaman community after name change between the students and the people who understand what’s going on at the school and the community members and alumni who are kind of removed from the conversation that’s been happening. I think a lot of people are scared by the term DEI because a lot of people don’t understand there’s a serious issue at our school. Discrimination is happening at our school and nothing is being done about it. Regardless of if you support diversity, equity and inclusion, you have to understand that it's affecting our students’ ability to learn and that should not ever be allowed, especially at a public school.”
 
As an ambassador for the club, Eckert serves on the district’s Equity Council. She is the lone student representative. And given her strong debate background, Eckert doesn’t hesitate to make her voice heard to her adult colleagues on the council.
 
“It’s really important that a student specifically has a voice in terms of what the school is doing to support DEI programs,” she said. “We’re the ones who are going to be impacted by this. I do think they do a good job that they’re listening when I have something to say.
 
“I am not one who is ever going to shy away from voicing my opinion. I’m not one to stray away from controversy. If I’m advocating for something I believe in, I’m going to see it through.”
 
Which comes as no surprise to her debate coaches, both former coach Dinges and current coach Aaron Dechant, who have seen that passion fuel her debate success.
 
“I think she’s got an empathetic core,” Dechant said. “She’s able to feel for and care about others and she harnesses that into debate. There’s an easy path in debate to not be conscious of the actual topics. But she doesn’t shy away from the heart behind the topics. She takes it right on.”
 
Dinges agreed.
 
“She’s a true believer,” he said. “As a coach, we get so dispassionate. You see something on TV and you’re thinking, ‘How can I use this in our debate round next week.’ She’s never been like that. She truly wanted to debate for a purpose. It wasn’t just a game. She’s good at the game, too, because there is a lot of gamesmanship involved in it. But there are some unique challenges in debate and you have to be good at so many things to be good at debate. She’s been able to see through all that and make arguments that she really believed in and there’s something special about that.”
 
Indeed, there is a passion Eckert possesses that goes beyond just arguing whatever topic is presented to her. 
 
“I always tell my novices this, ‘If you chose an (affirmative) based on its strategic merits rather than it being something that you believe in, you’re going to have a harder time defending it.’” Eckert said. “And that’s where I was so emotional going into the finals round (this year) because I knew that I was representing an affirmative that I believed in and not something I chose because it’s better for debate.
 
“I think some people struggle with taking a step back and looking at the bigger picture in debate. When you’re able to do that, that’s when you’re really successful. You can make arguments that you don’t necessarily have evidence for, but make sense objectively. Weirdly enough, that’s something that doesn’t come naturally to most debate people.”
 
Dechant took over as Seaman’s coach prior to the start of the 2022-23 school year and before the first day of practice, he got an eye-opener to Eckert’s passion for debate.
 
“I was moving in, setting up the room well before school began and here comes this high school student in the summer interested and dedicated enough to come in and ask about some of my approaches, what I hoped to see out of the squad,” he said. “I was immediately made aware of her dedication and focus on the activity, which is hands down just remarkable, but I’ve gotten to learn her character as the years have gone on. I was drawn to her immediately as an academic initially and then just wowed by her as a human.
 
“I was like, ‘Oh man, I’ve got my work cut out for me with this one.’ She is challenging of others in the very best of ways. Not as a way to tear down, block or hinder, but just the opposite. As competitive as she is and as talented as she is – you know you’ve seen great athletes or other people who diminish others around them and that’s absolutely not the case with Kate. She’s talented and great and yet still makes those around her better and feel good.”
 
After placing eighth at state last year with Luke Clifton, Eckert partnered with Weir for the postseason this year after going 8-0 at the Blue Valley Classic in early November. The week before this year’s state tournament, they reached the quarterfinals of the Kansas Debate Classic at Washburn Rural and went 5-2 overall with Eckert earning an award as the top-ranked Class 5A speaker.
 
At state, they started strong, going 4-0 on the first day. But they closed out prelims with two straight losses, taking a 4-2 mark into the Octofinals. That set up a showdown with Blue Valley Southwest’s Rishi Shetty and Raghuvamsh Penugonda, last year’s 5A state champions.
 
Eckert and Weir won a split decision to move on to the quarterfinals.
 
“I didn’t know that until we were finished,” Eckert said. “It was announced that we won and one of our teammates came up to us and said, ‘Did you know you just beat the state champions?’ And I was like, ‘No we didn’t.’ So that was excellent news. They were really excellent.”
 
In the quarterfinals, Eckert and Weir knocked off a Pittsburg team that had beaten them in preliminaries with a 3-0 decision. In the semifinals, they took a 2-1 decision over another Pitttsburg team they had previously beaten.
 
That set up a showdown with De Soto’s sister tandem of Isabella and Lucienna Guess. It was a tight battle in the finals, but the Guess sisters captured the state title with a 2-1 ballot split.
 
“They were very competent,” Eckert said. “I can’t be too mad about losing on a split ballot there. Honestly, last year when I lost in Octofinals, I was very upset about it, I won’t lie. I cried the whole next day. But this year, I was really satisfied that we got to where we did and in the finals I got to represent what I think is a better form of debate. We talked at a conversational pace and we talked about things we believe in. That means a lot to me to represent in that way in the finals.”
 
Perhaps making the finish even more satisfying for Eckert was the fact that the final four of the state tourney was all females. The significance of that goes back to her pre-debate days.
 
Prior to launching her debate career as a freshman, Eckert’s interests fell at a different end of the spectrum in grade and middle school. Gravitating toward STEM-oriented activities as a youth, she flourished at the SumDay math competitions held annually in Topeka and was heavily involved in the robotics program at Seaman Middle School.
 
As an eighth-grader, she captained a Viking team that qualified for nationals.
 
Yet as much as she enjoyed that activity, she also felt like a bit of an outcast as one of the few female participants.
 
“I was the captain of our team and other captains would refuse to speak to me and only would speak to my male teammates,” she said. “I would be the only woman in a room of 200 boys. I did not feel respected in that environment and it’s something I struggle with in debate as well, being a woman.
 
“I can’t say debate has solved that. I will always get comments on ballots that I’m too aggressive or not professional enough or what have you. I’ve debated with a male partner almost my whole year except for Hannah and Kylie. And they (males) never ever get comments about their appearance or their aggression. That’s something that’s only reserved for women and every woman will tell you that that’s true.
 
"That’s why it meant so much to be in a finals round 100% comprised of women with us and De Soto. That’s pretty rare. At the national level, this was the first year we’ve had four female debaters in the finals in like over 100 years of debating. We’re at a disadvantage and we’ve been able to overcome that and more to make the finals round. It’s very satisfying to say the least.”
 
“The activity as a whole has worked hard to be more inclusive of people of color, of lower socio-economic status, to women,” Dechant said. “But it still is an old activity that does have these remnants of the issues of its past. Seeing four strong powerful women in that final round says a lot about the women involved and the strength of the activity here.”
 
While Eckert devotes the bulk of her time to debate, where she’s been named an All-American and has earned the Premier Distinction honor (the highest degree in the National Speech and Debate Association’s honor society), she’s involved in multiple other activities at Seaman. In addition to her involvement with the Equity Action Network and Equity Council, Eckert is a member of the FCCLA club and Model UN as well as president of the National Honor Society.
 
She’s a multi-time state qualifier in tennis, placing 12^th in Class 5A doubles this season with partner Camryn Lux. Eckert also previously played soccer.
 
“I’ve loved high school,” she said. “I met so many people and I’ve learned about so many things that most people wouldn’t even know about. I’ve had a lot of mentors who have shaped me and peers alike. I’ve just grown so much and that’s what every teacher I’ve asked for a letter of recommendation has said. I’m so different, but in a good way. I hope.”
 
There’s little debate that her evolution has been nothing but positive at Seaman. Eckert said a quote from former United States Representative and civil rights activist John Lewis given to her by Dinges had a deep effect on the legacy she wanted to leave at Seaman.
 
“He pulled me aside my sophomore year and told me ‘Make good trouble’ and that’s something I’ll always remember,” Eckert said. “That’s what all of my advocacy is. I want to upend the status quo, but in a positive, constructive way.”
 
“There’s just getting into trouble and horsing around and there’s getting in trouble because you’re challenging the establishment,” Dinges said. “You just see that a person can go either way and I thought it was important for her to understand you can channel that energy into challenging the right things, the right norms and institutions. The world needs rabble-rousers, troublemakers; we need iconoclasts. But you have to put it in the direction of progress and helping other people.

“One thing I like about her is she really does want to make a difference and make the world better even though she’s smart enough to know how hard that is. That’s what’s going to take her far. She’s got a lot of perspective for a person her age and she knows how difficult it is to really make an impact on the world and she still wants to try to do that.”
 
Dechant doesn’t see Eckert’s ability to make a difference ending any time soon.
 
“I think Kate will only be stopped when Kate decides she’s satisfied,” he said. “I think she’s got the character, the intelligence and the drive to do absolutely anything. Good people have one of those three. Great people have two of those three. Kate’s got them all.”