2009 Graduate Competes in National Forensic League Speech and Debate Tournament
June 16, 2009
Forensic league debate
tournament brings 3,500 to Birmingham
[Posted by Jeff Hansen -- Birmingham News June 16, 2009, 6:00
AM]
Will Drevo, front, a student at Crete High School in Crete, Neb.,
plans his speech in the research room at the 2009 National Forensic
League National Speech and Debate Tournament. The event has drawn
3,500 students from across the nation to the Birmingham area this
week.
In the stuffy gym of Oak Mountain
High School, you've been called forward by the officials. You
blindly pick out three questions from a tray of paper strips, and
you get these:
• Have YouTube and Twitter become the new
American culture?
• Will the Kennedy Serve America Act
rejuvenate volunteerism?
• Is the liberal media a myth or a
reality?
Choose one. Now you have 30 minutes to
research, prepare and memorize a seven-minute speech. Oh, and then
you'll have to walk into a classroom and give the speech -- without
notes or any other help.
Competitors at the United States
Extemporaneous Speaking national competition faced this challenge
not once, but three times on Monday, as part of the week-long
National Forensic League's national speech and debate tournament
which has drawn 3,500 students to the metro area.
"It's nerve-wracking," said Emma
McIntyre, a 15-year-old rising junior at Central High School in
Springfield, Mo. "Here I compare myself to all 50 states."
Each extemporaneous speaker kept several plastic tubs in the gym
that were filled with newspaper clip¬pings they collected during
statewide competitions last winter and spring. The stu¬dents looked
at files if they needed to refresh their memories. But the 30
minute clock was ticking and most began to practice their
speeches.
Some stood next to their file boxes,
their mouths moving without sound or in quiet drones.
Many began to walk around the gym -- lines of solitary boys in dark
suits and ties, solitary girls in pant suits or business skirts and
blouses -- walking, muttering, gesturing, talking, their eyes in a
1,000-yard stare. Time was running down.
"It's a nervous habit," said Bob
Jones of Canby, Ore., one of the tournament officials. "They're
going over their speeches in their heads.
At 30 minutes, they were told to head
to the class¬room where they would give the talk.
Waiting to be called in, they occupied the hallways, continuing to
speak into nothingness -- some pacing, some standing and staring at
a locker, most gesturing with one hand, some making their points
with two.
At 4 p.m., they reached their third
speech of the day, and the hallways took on the feeling of "Night
of the Living Dead." Today they face another three speeches.
"The first two days are brutal," said
Jones, who taught public speaking and debate for 30 years before
his retirement from Canby High School. "But these kids are the
sharpest kids in America."
