by Max Rios | staff writer
With the Bluebonnet Classic having reached its end, students from across Texas came to Johnson to scrape up their last bit of points to have a chance to compete at the state competition.
“Kids do preliminary rounds of competition where one is entered and then we advance the ones that are the most successful to semi-finals, quarter finals, depending on the event then advance to finals and the winners get points towards state qualification,” Debate Teacher Barbara McCain said.
So that’s how the ball rolls at these speaking competitions. Students enter a specific kind of competition, it being for debate or theater, then enter a sub-category such as public forum or dramatic interpretation.
“Recently I’ve been doing congress for the last 4 to 5 competitions but before that I was just doing Foreign Extemp (FX) do to the fact that it was my first year”, Freshman Seth Muñoz said.
With the event lasting two days, competitors will compete both days while on the second theater students will also compete for speech points.
“For tomorrow in congress they’re going to have the second and third round and tomorrow they’re also going to have a lot of interpretation events”, Muñoz said.
Thirty-five schools in Texas, such as Reagan to Stony Point near Austin have sent three to four of their students to compete.
“Of the 35, we have Stony Point from Austin area, we have of course ChurchHill, Roosevelt Reagan, Lee, all of our NEISD schools as well as a number of the North Side schools,” McCain said.
With this competition being the last one to gather the points, schools have sent their remaining students to scrape-up the final points required to make it into other competitions, including state.
“There will be about 300 students here, off and on during the course of the tournament. This is the last tournament to qualify for the state tournament so some schools are just sending two to three kids that are trying to get the last points that they need for qualification while others have brought like 15, 20, 25 kids so it varies. You know some schools just have a few others have quite a few,” McCain said.
Schedule
Friday, February 6,2015
4:15-5:00 Registration in Upper Foyer of school (in hallway near cafeteria)
5:15-7:15 Round 1 LD and PF
6:00-9:30 Prelims of Congress
7:15-9:00 Round 2 LD and PF
9:00-10:30 Round 3 LD and PF (Rd. 3 will be power-matched off RD. 1 results)
Saturday, February 7, 2015
7:45 Extemp Draw
8:00-9:45 Round 1 Section A Events–USX, FX, NX, DI, Duet, PR
9:45-11:15 Round 2 Section A–USX, FX, NX, DI, Duet, PR
11:15-12:45 Round 1 Section B–OO, HI, Duo, Poetry
Round 4 LD and PF
11:15-1:45 Semis of Congress, if needed. Finals if no Semis
12:45-2:15 Round 2 Section B–OO, HI, Duo, Poetry
2:00 Draw
2:15-3:45 Semi’s Section A–USX, FX, NX, DI, Duet, PR
3:45-5:15 Semi’s Section B–OO, HI, Duo, Poetry
1st elimination round Debate
5:15-6:45 Finals Section A–USX, FX, NX, DI, Duet, PR
6:45- 8:15 Finals Section B–OO, HI, Duo, Poetry
6:45-8:45 Congress Finals (if not held earlier)
6:45-8:30 Debate elimination rounds continue
9:00 Award Ceremony
