A pair of Parsons High School students are celebrating after a second place finish at a national competition.

 

 The duo of Antonio Aita and Conner Barcus recently competed at the Technology Student Association Conference in Orlando, Florida, where they placed second in the Debating Technical Issues category. In the competition, teams draw a topic and then have 15 minutes to prepare for the debate. Topics they debated for their second place finish included autonomous cars and renewable energy

Conner Barcus was the alternate for Jayce Quirin, who partnered with Aita to win the competition at the state level to qualify them for nationals.

The competition included 9,000 students from all 50 states as well as students from Germany, Turkey, South Korea, and American Samoa.

Aita and Barcus are the first USD 503 students to place at the national competition.