This past Friday and Saturday, OCSA’s Speech and Debate Team traveled to Timber Creek High School to compete in the region’s national qualifiers. The team completed three rounds when, at 10:30 am, a Timber Creek student who was attending Saturday school detonated an explosive.

The explosive triggered the fire alarms and alerted the fire department of the threat. The school was evacuated and the fire put out by 10:55 am. Students remained outside for an additional two hours, waiting to learn when their rounds would continue. The head coaches of the participating schools decided that instead of waiting four to five hours for the school to be cleared by a bomb squad, they would have to figure out who qualified based on the three rounds that were completed. OCSA’s team members will find out if they qualified later this week.