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<p>WILKES-BARRE &#8212; It&#8217;s Frank Sinatra laid low with a cold, it&#8217;s John Wilkes Booth convincing Lee Harvey Oswald to kill JFK, it&#8217;s the reason America can&#8217;t develop closer economic and diplomatic relations with China as long as Donald Trump is president.</p><p>The four members of the Meyers High School speech and debate team heading to a national competition in Louisville, Ky., this weekend certainly didn&#8217;t shy away from the tough topics.</p><p>Take senior James Langan, competing in Oral Interpretation, reading from the Esquire Magazine piece &#8220;Frank Sinatra has a cold,&#8221; a profile published in 1966 about a man who died in 1998, re-imagined by a guy from the Class of &#8216;17.</p><p>&#8220;At first, I just read it out loud and it lasted about 24 minutes,&#8221; Langan said. He had to trim it to under 10. Which section did he hone in on? The part with Don Rickles performing in the Sahara in Las Vegas. Sinatra heckles Rickles to wrap it up. Rickles fires back &#8220;Shaddup and sit down! I had to listen to you sing &#8230; .&#8221;</p><p>Under the rules in the National Catholic Forensic League competition, Langan alternates the prose performance each round with one involving poetry. He picked two poems critical of American education, including &#8220;This is genius,&#8221; by Ryan Lotocki &#8212; which, he demonstrates, starts &#8220;School sucks&#8221; and runs a rough riff on how &#8220;school is a project in which students never get to project their abilities.&#8221;</p><p>Often, he notes, the contest judges are teachers, and this &#8220;doesn&#8217;t go over very well.&#8221;</p><p>Or consider freshman Dylan Romero, who admits he is nervous about his first national competition. He picked a scene from Steven Sondheim&#8217;s musical &#8220;Assassins,&#8221; first performed in 1990, well before he was born. Which scene? He stands up and launches into the moment when Booth convinces Oswald to drop the suicide idea and shoot the president instead.</p><p>&#8220;Alek,&#8221; Romero says as Booth, using one of Oswald&#8217;s favorite aliases, &#8220;you used to like that name. Marina said Lee sounded Chinese, so she called you Alek.&#8221;</p><p>Then there are juniors Natalie Davidson and Elsa Romero vying in Policy Debate. That&#8217;s the one most people think of when you talk about this stuff: Someone gives a topic, and the two sides argue pro and con. Their preferred topic is whether the U.S. should pursue improved relations with China.</p><p>Davidson quickly hits the controversy button by contending the answer is yes, but only if Trump is removed from the White House.</p><p>&#8220;Our argument is that Donald Trump called out China, basically he is setting the tone for tensions to rise between him and China, and that&#8217;s disrupting the relationship we have,&#8221; Davidson said.</p><p>The duo keep a second topic on hand if needed, but it&#8217;s not exactly a safe one either: They argue there is sexism in the speech and debate competitions, that success can be impacted if you are female in a world where the judges are mostly men.</p><p>The competition runs Saturday and Sunday, and depending how many entrants there are, these four could end up doing their thing eight to 10 times.</p><style>
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<div class="neCaption">Meyers High School speech and debate team member Natalie Davidson talks about competing in a national competition while teammates Dylan Romero and James Langan listen at the Wilkes-Barre law offices of Borland &amp; Borland Wednesday. </div></div><div class="metaInfo"><photo0>https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/web1_TTL052517debate_mg_1.jpg</photo0><caption0>Meyers High School speech and debate team member Natalie Davidson talks about competing in a national competition while teammates Dylan Romero and James Langan listen at the Wilkes-Barre law offices of Borland &amp; Borland Wednesday. </caption0><photoCredit0>Bill Tarutis | For Times Leader </photoCredit0></div><div class="neFile"><img class="neImage" src="https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/web1_TTL052517debate_mg_2.jpg">
<div class="neCaption">Meyers freshman Dylan Romero rehearses his planned performance for the Dramatic Interpretation portion of the National Catholic Forensic League competition this weekend in Louisville, Ky. Romero will perform an excerpt form &#8216;The Assassins,&#8217; a Steven Sondheim musical. He opted for dialogue involving Lee Harvey Oswald. </div></div><div class="metaInfo"><photo1>https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/web1_TTL052517debate_mg_2.jpg</photo1><caption1>Meyers freshman Dylan Romero rehearses his planned performance for the Dramatic Interpretation portion of the National Catholic Forensic League competition this weekend in Louisville, Ky. Romero will perform an excerpt form &#8216;The Assassins,&#8217; a Steven Sondheim musical. He opted for dialogue involving Lee Harvey Oswald. </caption1><photoCredit1>Bill Tarutis | For Times Leader </photoCredit1></div><div class="neFile"><img class="neImage" src="https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/web1_TTL052517debate_mg_3.jpg">
<div class="neCaption">From right, Meyers High School speech and debate team members James Langan, Dylan Romero, Natalie Davidson, and Elsa Romero talk about their trip to Louisville to vie in a national competition. </div></div><div class="metaInfo"><photo2>https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/web1_TTL052517debate_mg_3.jpg</photo2><caption2>From right, Meyers High School speech and debate team members James Langan, Dylan Romero, Natalie Davidson, and Elsa Romero talk about their trip to Louisville to vie in a national competition. </caption2><photoCredit2>Bill Tarutis | For Times Leader </photoCredit2></div><div class="neFile"><img class="neImage" src="https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/web1_Debate3aCP.jpg">
<div class="neCaption">Meyers freshman Dylan Romero rehearses his planned performance for the Dramatic Interpretation portion of the National Catholic Forensic League competition this weekend in Louisville, Ky. Romero will perform an excerpt form &#8216;The Assassins,&#8217; a Steven Sondheim musical. He opted for dialogue involving Lee Harvey Oswald. </div></div><div class="metaInfo"><photo3>https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/web1_Debate3aCP.jpg</photo3><caption3>Meyers freshman Dylan Romero rehearses his planned performance for the Dramatic Interpretation portion of the National Catholic Forensic League competition this weekend in Louisville, Ky. Romero will perform an excerpt form &#8216;The Assassins,&#8217; a Steven Sondheim musical. He opted for dialogue involving Lee Harvey Oswald. </caption3><photoCredit3>Bill Tarutis | For Times Leader </photoCredit3></div><div class="neFile"><img class="neImage" src="https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/web1_Debate3ASecondary.jpg">
<div class="neCaption">From right, Meyers High School speech and debate team members James Langan, Dylan Romero, Natalie Davidson, and Elsa Romero talk about their trip to Louisville to vie in a national competition. </div></div><div class="metaInfo"><photo4>https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/web1_Debate3ASecondary.jpg</photo4><caption4>From right, Meyers High School speech and debate team members James Langan, Dylan Romero, Natalie Davidson, and Elsa Romero talk about their trip to Louisville to vie in a national competition. </caption4><photoCredit4>Bill Tarutis | For Times Leader </photoCredit4></div></div>
<div class="metaInfo"><bylineMeta><p>By Mark Guydish</p><p>mguydish@www.timesleader.com</p></bylineMeta></div><div class="metaInfo"><shirttailMeta><p>Reach Mark Guydish at 570-991-6112 or on Twitter @TLMarkGuydish</p></shirttailMeta></div>

Sinatra, Sondheim and Trump: Meyers students at national debate competition