terese tricamo/special to the Town Crier Prashant Rai smiles in celebration of his high rank in national debate.

Prashant Rai, a recent Mountain View High School graduate, placed sixth in the Lincoln-Douglas National at the National Forensic League Tournament in Dallas last month, capping four years on the Mountain View-Los Altos High School speech and debate team.

Earlier this year, Rai took third place at the Tournament of Champions in Lexington, Ky. - the most competitive debate tournament in the nation - and was champion of the Stanford University Round Robin and the UC Berkeley Invitational.

During his years at Mountain View High, he won numerous debate awards and has been considered one of the best in his event, the Lincoln-Douglas, a one-on-one debate that stresses philosophy. At the National Forensics League Tournament, Rai debated the topic: In matters of collecting military intelligence, the ends justify the means. He was the only debater from California to place in the top 15.

Rai and fellow classmate Stephen Hess helped their squad become one of the most respected in the nation. Hess won the Tournament of Champions and placed third at the California State Tournament. Both Hess and Rai are National Forensic League Academic All-Americans. Rai plans to attend UCLA in the fall. Hess plans to attend Stanford.

Kiwi Camara, a graduate fellow at Stanford University, coached the debate team, with help from Karen Keefer, a parent of former team members who has worked with the team for 11 years, and Navot Tidhar, who is now at UC Santa Barbara.

The National Forensic League is an honor society and educational resource for teachers, students, administrators and parents in the field of speech and debate. It has more than 2,700 member schools and 90,000 active student members.

For more information, visit http://www.nflonline.org/uploads/Main/nt_results.pdf.