From March 13th through March 16th, our speech and debate team will compete in the state tournament at the University of Kentucky. Debaters will compete on March 13th and 14th. Those who are in speech will compete on March 15th and 16th. We have more people on our team who are competing in this tournament than any other tournament this season, with 27 people competing so far.

Throughout this season, we’ve competed against many schools from a wide variety of locations. Yet, we will still be going against schools that we’ve never seen before.

Most of the debating will occur on the 13th, while the award ceremony will occur on the 14th. Those competing in speech events will compete in prelims on the 15th. Finals and the award ceremony for speech will take place on the 16th.

This tournament takes place throughout the University of Kentucky’s campus. There are many categories in speech, so they need loads of space to have enough room for all these students. There are three rounds in prelims on the 15th, and then on Saturday the 16th quarter-finals, semi-finals, and finals will take place to determine the ultimate winner in each category.

In the speech portion, each team is allowed to send a maximum of 3 students from each category to state. This is done to limit the number of kids competing so that they have enough room to hold the tournament. Since there is no regional tournament for debate, fewer categories for debate, and fewer students in debate, all debaters are allowed to compete on the state level.

Our team is very excited, we’ve been practicing harder than ever. With our current turnout and the amount of practice and dedication within our team, we have a strong chance of having some students who at least make it to finals.