Tournament Update: Overland Candlelight Invite

On Saturday, November 15th, 13 members of the Eaglecrest Speech & Debate Team competed at Overland High School for our first varsity tournament of the year!  Our competitors ranged in experience--from several veteran seniors to some novices who competed for the first time.  That's one of the things I love most about our competitions now that we are into our main competitive season--our entire team, no matter their experience level, has time to get to know each other, compete, and watch rounds to learn and improve.  

Our competitors entered in a variety of events this weekend, and many were competing in events that were new to them.  The following students were recognized for their performance over the course of the tournament:

• Abigail Allyn, '17--broke to her first finals, took 6th place in Impromptu
• Jade Felthoven, '18--Superior in Original Oratory
• Jailene Ledesma, '16--Superior in Poetry
• Charlotte Lartson, '17 & Ben Berry, '17--Superior in Improvisational Pairs
• Simon Menso, '15 & Colin McGuire, '15--Superior in Improvisational Pairs
• Casey Lambert, '16--Excellence in Congress, best speaker nomination

I'd like to acknowledge our other competitors from this tournament, as well: Alex Kuehn ('16) in Poetry, Bailee Jones ('18) in Poetry, Jake Sappwood ('18) in LD, Simon Menso ('15) in National Extemp, Ngozi Idiaka ('17) in Foreign Extemp, Paris Grigsby ('18) in Impromptu, Ben Berry ('17) in Drama, and Charlotte Lartson ('17) in Drama.

I couldn't be happier with the results of our first tournament.  Not only did they have fun and get to know new people, our competitors earned a combined total of nearly 150 NFL points.  We now welcome five new members to the NFL Honor Society, as they have earned their degree of merit: Jade Felthoven, Ben Berry, Charlotte Lartson, Bailee Jones, and Casey Lambert.

To all of our competitors--well done!  I'm looking forward to what the rest of our season holds for us!

--Ms. McCulloch