By Sai Sailaja Seshadri

Staff Writer

@saisailu97

After teaching for 45 years, of which she spent 11 years at Coppell High School, speech and debate teacher Glenda Ferguson will retire this year.

Having started out at Irving MacArthur High School teaching theatre, Ferguson then moved to Oklahoma and taught there for a while before eventually coming back to CHS to become the speech and debate coach.

Ferguson has won several awards during her career, including to the Key Coach award at Emory University’s Barkley Forum and Oklahoma’s H.B. Mitchell Outstanding Coach Award.  She is also currently the Coach Development Coordinator for the National Debate Coaches Association.

While in Oklahoma, Ferguson wrote a book titled How to Coach Debate if You Have Never Taught Debate.

“I wrote that book because that was exactly me at the time, I had never taught debate before,” Ferguson said. “Debate can be a really difficult topic to teach sometimes.”

Although she will no longer be at CHS, Ferguson does not plan to just sit around at home. Her plans for retirement include possibly working part-time, traveling around the world and hopefully working with the Urban Debate League, an organization that helps high school debate teams around the nation.

“I’m going to miss the kids and the competitions,” Ferguson said. “I have really too many memories that involve debate competitions we have been to and how the kids have dealt with their success, and if there is any one memorable part of my experience here, it is that.”