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Team says this trip was different Mail Tribune / Drew Fleming Ashland High School senior and debate team member Megan Cotton, right, receives a warm welcome home from her boyfriend, Tony Kinzie, a Southern Oregon University sophomore, Sunday afternoon at the Rogue Valley International/Medford Airport. The Ashland students debated with a team from Cuba in Washington, D.C., where kids from both countries toured the U.S. capital and met for debates. Both teams then went to Cuba for more debates. By Chris Bristol Hugs and kisses greeted the Ashland High School debate team Sunday, fresh off the plane from their second historic trip to Cuba in less than a year. "Just to be together again, that�s the best present" for the Christmas holiday, explained Tammy Reichenshammer, whose son and husband were among the 22 debaters and their chaperones who arrived home safely on a sunny winter day at the Medford airport. Debate coach John Tredway said the trip was much different than the first one, and he was glad to be home. From the look on the face of his wife, Gloria, the feeling was mutual. "The gloves came off a little this time around," he said of the debate team�s experience in Cuba. "It really opened our eyes to some of the things going on down there." "I�m just glad he�s back," Gloria Tredway said. "He�s got some Christmas shopping to do." The debate team made national headlines in January with its first trip to Cuba, which has been ostracized by the United States as a rogue nation since Communist leader Fidel Castro came to power in 1959. The highlight of the trip came when the Ashland teens hammered out a compromise with their Cuban counterparts, calling for a U.N.-mediated solution to the Elian Gonzalez custody crisis. The rematch of sorts actually began in Washington, D.C., where the students from Oregon and Cuba toured the U.S. capitol and met for yet another historic debate, this one staged in the House Agricultural Committee Hearing Room. The debate was historic because it was the first such visit by Cuban students in 40 years. For most of the Ashland students, it was their first trip to the nation�s capital as well. Rex Reichenshammer, an 18-year-old Ashland High School senior, said he enjoyed the sites, particularly the African Art Museum and the Lincoln Memorial. The chilly weather, on the other hand, was not so great. "As bad as it was for us, imagine what it was like for the Cuban kids," he said. "I think they wore just about all the clothes they had every day." The weather in Cuba was just the opposite � hot and humid. And so was the rhetoric, Reichenshammer said. "It just seemed more intense," he said. "Last time we were unanimous on all the resolutions. This time it was all split." Two resolutions sponsored by the Cubans � abandoning the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay and ending the U.S. trade embargo � were narrowly passed 19-17. In both cases, an Ashland student sided with the Cubans. No such luck for the two resolutions sponsored by the Americans. A resolution condemning the incarceration of political prisoners was defeated 19-17 (again, an Ashland student sided with the Cubans) and another one that condemned political rhetoric failed 18-18. Reichenshammer said the debates seemed less productive because the Cubans insisted on blaming their country�s democratic shortcomings (particularly human rights abuses and free-speech restrictions) on the U.S. "blockade." "They kept saying, �We won�t tone down the rhetoric because you won�t tone down the embargo,� " he said. "It just made it impossible for us to get anywhere. "It�s not that there was bad blood, or anything," he continued. "They can separate people from government policy, just like we can. But they wouldn�t hear us out (in the debates), because of the embargo." Tredway said another issue was the reluctance of the Cuban students to get beyond propaganda. Even people on the street seem afraid to speak their mind, he added. "They�ll talk to you," he said, "but they�re always looking in both directions." But talking to people on the street was one aspect of this trip that improved on the first, he said. "We got out and about a lot more this time," he said. "I was amazed at the access." No more trips are planned for the moment. Tredway said he hopes to convince the Cuban government to let a debate team attend the national speech tournament next year at the University of Oklahoma . Mail Tribune Home | Ottaway Newspapers, Inc. | Dow Jones & Co., Inc. | Privacy | Contact Us Copyright � 2000 Mail Tribune, Inc.