WACFL 4 IE/PF

On Saturday, January 16, R-MA Speech and Debate traveled to Edison High School in Alexndria to compete in the Washington-Arlington Catholic Forensics League Preliminary Speech/ Public Forum Tournament #4.

WACFL, though originally founded to meet the needs of private schools, is primarily made up of a 40 public and private schools in Maryland, DC, and Northern Virginia. Each preliminary tournament adds to a student’s bids for WACFL Metrofinals at the end of February and early March. Metrofinals will determine which six students from the Northern Virginia area will attend CFL Grand Nationals at the end of May in Ripon, Wisconsin.

Waking up too darn early (0500) and loading the bus in the cold and dark (0545) to leave campus by 0600 to eat McGriddles and McDonald’s, our students settled into the routing of locking and loading before we rolled into the parking lot at Thomas Alva Edison High School. Like a line of ants with grain-carrying mouths, our debaters and speakers started bringing in all the 12 files, the three cases of water, the case of energy drinks, and the two cases of beef jerky and cheese crackers that fuels the machine that is R-MA Speech and Debate.

We were joined by alumni Robert E. "Bo" Snitchler (Dickinson), Yuliya Orlva (Bryn Mawr), Sean Dunaway (Grinnell), and RK "LB" McDaniel (Hampton-Sydney) in the judging pool and the team members saw through interacting with the alumni, that speech and debate is not just a team, it very much is a family that stretches beyond graduation and beyond the walls of R-MA.

Following four rounds of speech and four rounds of Public Forum, the results were a solid statement on the strength of this new R-MA Speech and Debate team:

Public Forum:
5th Varsity... The Team of Gerber and Nell
4th JV... The Team of Collins and Pionkowski

Speech:
Coming Soon!

Following our victory, we went to Don Pablo’s to celebrate Gigi’s 18th birthday with sombrero and Amerixan Food. We only have two last WACFL Preliminary tournaments – one in Speech and one in PF – to secure our last slots for WACFL Metros.

Pictures can be found at: http://fglds.pbase.com

NoVaFL Season Champions

On Wednesday, January 12, the R-MA Speech and Debate Team hit the road for the Northern Virginia Forensics League Tor Johnson Championship at West Potomac High School in Alexandria. The Northern Virginia Forensics League (NoVaFL) is composed of around 20 schools in the DC-metroplex – all in excess of a thousand students.

Following a tough tournament, R-MA was able to come away with its seventh-straight season championship trophy in NoVaFL – beating five former VHSL State Champions. Though West Springfield was able to slip by us to take home the Tor Johnson Championship Trophy by only 3 points out of 128, we did take home sweepstakes. Quoting Mr. Gregg, "The Tor Johnson Championship cup is always up for grabs... we’ve missed out on it about three times over the years; though grabbing season sweepstakes. The Tor is a two-round tournament and, here, the much larger teams that the DC schools can muster against us come in handy to pad-out events. It’s good strategy and I definitely take my hat off to West Springfield."

At this tournament, we were joined by R-MA Alumni, Yuliya Orlova, Sean Dunaway, David Tuck, Patrick Mahoney, and RK McDaniel. It really is great seeing the end-result of our program... after all the rounds, after all the trips, to hear your alumni talk well of the program and its impact means more than any trophies we’ve ever won.

Though saddled with a great deal of sickness, R-MA was still able to field a good-sized team and
took home a significant number of trophies:
Coming Soon

Pictures available at http://pbase.com/fglds

ShenVaFL Champions

On Thursday, Jan. 7, following a great flurry of activity to reprint and reconstruct an entire Continent in the Extemp Files, the R-MA Speech and Debate Team competed in the Shenandoah Valley Forensics League Tor Johnson Championship Tournament, hosted at Sherando High School. Though the Shenandoah Valley sounds like it may be an easy walk in the park, this league is one of the most competitive of the mid-week leagues ... with four state championship and runner-up schools all vying for the championship.

This year, R-MA was able to retain its championship in the season and final tournament against the hard and magnificent competition of our friendly rival, Madison County (a 13-year VHSL Speech and Debate Championship school). Through pushing past Madison by a mere 3 points at the championship, R-MA was able to take home the ShenVaFL Tor Johnson Championship Cup, as well as its third ShenVaFL Season Cup for Large Schools. Yes, though R-MA is almost the smallest school in the league, due to the size of our team, we are the largest in the state.

Though Bus 24 was laid up in the shop for a shreded belt, we were able to get one of the new bus for the short trip to Sherando. Though the bus had a bit more zip, we had grown accustomed to Bus 24 and its cushioned ride with easy-access files. But, helped by Mr. Pratt who purchased supplies for us, we were able to transport all the files, trophies, ballots, and everything necessary to run a large 16-school tournament.

The results were impressive:
Impromptu
1st.. Tyler Solley

Domestic Extemp
2nd.. Martha Galewski

Foreign Extemp
1st.. Brennan Morris

Constitutional Comm.
2nd.. Gigi Baughman
3rd.. Xing Zhang

Declamation
2nd (tie).. Xing Zhang and Apryl Sands

Poetry
3rd.. Apryl Sands

LD Novice
3rd.. Katherine Hoptiak

Public Forum Novice
1st.. Gerber/ Nell
2nd.. Pionkowski/ Collins

Public Forum Open
1st.. Dungan/ Dungan
2nd.. Pratt/ Morrow
3rd.. McCotter/ McCotter

Congress
5th.. Jackson McGraw

Original Oratory
1st.. Martha Galewski
4th.. Tyler Solley
5th (tie).. Brennan Morris and Gigi Baughman

Laird Lewis a Cautious Success

Posted by Brennan Morris
FGLDS President

Debate often requires a great deal of sacrifice from its students... early mornings loading the bus, late nights in rounds, long trips to tournaments in cities few of the students have ever heard of. But the Laird Lewis Invitational on January 3-6 was, for many, the ultimate in sacrifice... missing out on the four days of Christmas Vacation to compete at a large national tournament in Charlotte, NC.

Though many of the students had to sacrifice to come to the tournament, no one travelled farther than T. Graham Morrow, flying from Niger, through Charles de Galle Airport, and finally picked up by the Pratt family at Dulles.

In getting to the tournament, the R-MA Debate Bus made the circuit from Front Royal, where the files were loaded by John Holsinger and Mr. Gregg, to the Manassas Borders parking lot and picking up most of the students, to Colonial Forge and picking up Nora McCotter, to Durham, NC to pick up our final piece of the puzzle – Allyn Collins. But the trip passed quickly, as the students got reacquainted with one another and got to serious prepping out on the new January Resolution: "Resolved: In a democracy, Civil Disobedience is an appropriate weapon in the fight for justice." As this was a new resolution, the debaters made that commitment to travel to a very tough tournament in order to be the best prepared for NFL Qualifiers/ VaFL States at the end of the month.

Staying in the fabulous Staybridge Suites, following dinner at the only Checkers Dining Room.. complete with roller-skating waitresses, the team worked heavily that morning on the practice rounds before registration. Working so hard, it was a scramble-dash to get to registration before it closed. Scouting out the fabulous Myers Park High School and then hitting Taco Bell for a quick and nutritious meal, we set up our LZ (landing zone) in the cafeteria and prepared for the double-patterned six rounds, bouncing between extemporaneous speaking and Public Forum rounds from Friday afternoon until Saturday evening.

This tournament being one of the few where Mr. Gregg was not in Tab, he prepped out students between rounds and worrying over the judge pools for VaFL States. It was a special and rare treat to the students to be able to have Mr. Gregg on-hand for prep and running arguments past in real-time.

On Saturday, we saw that John Holsinger had broken to semifinals in Declamation and the team of Kaleb Gerber and Marianne Nell had broken to quarterfinals in Public Forum. Following awards and a nerve-wracking easter egg hunt for our portfolios and bags, the first round of the National Public Forum Challenge, sponsored by Crossfire Briefs, began. Our invited team, the team of Morris and Morrow, tried out a new libertarian/ social contract case. The results were not so good; but a valuable lesson was learned – keep the arguments simple and straightforward.
As the tournament ran later than we anticipated, the R-MA team stayed an additional night in the hotel, watching scary movies, doing homework, or engaged in violent Risk games that endlessly reduced one freshman to the small island of Madagascar.

When we returned to campus Monday evening, we found that we had only left a laptop and the entire Africa Extemp File in North Carolina. The laptop was recovered and sent fed ex. The Africa file was devoured by other teams, leaving only an empty husk. Lessons learned: One) Everyone packs their own laptop and puts it in their seat, Two) If 12 boxes of files come off the bus, 12 go back on and to always bolt and load after the last speaker, Three) Prepare even more and review and rewrite cases for NFL States at the end of the month.

Pictures can be found at: http://fglds.pbase.com/