(Atlantic) Last week four Atlantic High School students traveled to Richmond, Virginia to compete in the National Speech and Debate (NSDA) association’s nation-wide tournament. This was AHS’s 30th time attending the tournament as a school. The four competitors were freshman John McCurdy, sophomore David Blake, junior Bailey Grieshaber and senior Margaret McCurdy led by Head Coach Trisha Koenig and Assistant Coach Mark Andersen. Margaret McCurdy succeeded in reaching the semi-final rounds in Prose, a supplemental event.
For these four competitors the road to nationals was a long one, and they had a new coach along for the ride. “It’s been a very interesting experience,” said Andersen, who fulfilled his first year as a coach this year. “Going from the first tournament… Having my introduction to the NSDA categories was interesting. Then going from tournament to tournament and getting a little bit of a better experience of how things work, mostly on the speech side.”
Students qualified for the tournament in a number of different ways. John McCurdy qualified by placing fourth at the West Iowa District Congressional Debate tournament. This earned him a place in the student congress House of Representatives at nationals.
Blake qualified by placing second in Program Oral Interpretation (POI) at the West Iowa Speech District tournament. POI is a relatively new event established in 2016 where a student performs a ten minute program comprising sections of prose, poetry, drama, articles, or research papers in their own dramatic interpretation. POI performances usually center on a topic important to the performer, but can just as easily be silly as they can be serious. A small black binder with the materials must be carried by the performance during their program. Blake’s program was titled “Villians” and centered around the 1966 shooting at the University of Texas.
While Grieshaber did not qualify in a tournament, she was nominated by her coach, Koenig, to be a part of World Schools team debate. In World Schools, teams of five debaters argue one central resolution. Iowa took two teams in this event, all composed of students who were nominated to be in them. Grieshaber’s team included students from Waukee Northwest, Dowling Catholic, Johnston and Roosevelt high schools.
Margaret McCurdy was the second AHS student to qualify in POI this year by placing first at the District Tournament. This was her fourth time attending nationals. Because of this she was honored with a commemorative trophy upon registration at the tournament. McCurdy’s program was titled “Rainbow Hearts, White Coats” and explored the topic of LGBTQ healthcare providers. Koenig said that she was “Incredibly proud to have a four year qualifier.”
Competition between the 7,000 student attendees began on Monday, June 15. “I think we were prepared. We have good people who knew what they were doing,” said Andersen. “I felt pretty good about the possibilities. I knew the likelihood of things were going to be, well you have to be at the top, top, top.” For the first two days all four students competed in their main events. The competitors were spread around Richmond, with congressional debate taking place at the Greater Richmond Convention Center and speech events happening at local high schools and middle schools. All competitors are guaranteed rounds in these first two days, but that morning the first “breaks” occur. When a break occurs, students selected from the preliminary rounds of debate or speech competition move on to double octofinals. Then, an even smaller group of competitors is selected to move to octofinals. This process is repeated with quarter and semifinals, eventually breaking to the final competitors for finals. The process can be slightly different for each event.
None of the AHS competitors made the first break, but they weren’t done competing. Students not selected to break were eligible to compete in supplemental events. John McCurdy, Margaret McCurdy and David Blake re-registered to compete in supplemental rounds on Wednesday, June 17. Margaret McCurdy competed in Prose as her supplemental event. Similar to POI, Prose competitors used a black binder with their materials, but the performance is only five minutes long and is entirely from one script. Margaret McCurdy’s Prose was titled “The Center of the Universe” and was written by Simon Rich. The piece was a comedy about God having a girlfriend, and it raised a lot of laughs.
Blake competed in Poetry for his supplemental event. Poetry is a five minute event which uses a black binder. The poetry used can be from one or multiple poets. Blake’s piece was titled “Sweet and Fitting” which examines the loss that occurs during war.
John McCurdy “did not want to have to prepare anything more because of debate,” so he competed in Impromptu. In Impromptu a speaker is given three prompts which are randomly drawn. They select one of the prompts, which is usually a quote or an object. They then have seven minutes, and they may choose how they use that time between preparing their speech and speaking.
Only Margaret McCurdy broke to the next round in supplemental events. On Thursday, June 18 she competed in the continuing out rounds, and made it all the way to semifinals. In semifinals she was one of the top fourteen POI performers out of the original 414. After semifinals, she was eliminated and did not advance to finals. She said that making it to semifinals made her feel “accomplished and excited for another round of competition.” Koenig highlighted Margaret’s success as one of her favorite moments of the whole tournament. Koenig said that “Margaret advanced the farthest that she ever has, just to see her continue advancing and to have that excitement of what might be next and to see how far it could go, was just such a cool experience.”
On Friday, June 19 finals rounds were held but no AHS students participated in them. However, one Iowa team from Johnston High School did win the national tournament in Public Forum debate. The AHS students had much fun cheering for them as fellow Iowans. Blake said he had a good time “sharing the story that I made and performed in the Iowa speech tournaments. I also loved hanging out with my teammates.” The team brought back three awards. Two of them were earned by Margaret McCurdy for being a semifinalist in a supplemental event and one was earned by John McCurdy for serving as a presiding officer during the House preliminary rounds.
