It has been awhile, but that is only because the SMSU Forensics team is staying very busy!
Our most recent endeavour was the High School Speech Tournament that SMSU hosts every Spring semester. This year, the tournament was on Saturday, March 21st. It started at 8am and lasted until about 5pm. Nine hours of judging, giving directions, taking ballots, and entering scores was just a few of the tasks that the team had in store for themselves. Of course, one person cannot do all of those tasks; therefore, each student is assigned a different area to be in charge of.
First, students are allowed to fill out an application to be the Assistant Student Director of the tournament under the direction of Mark Fokken. This year, Veronica Fischer was honored with the title and she worked many long hours with Mark to make the tournament possible.
After that, each member of the team is given an important task to make the tournament move along smoothly. One of the more important jobs for an individual, is working in the tabulation room. This room usually has about eight people working in it. Anymore than that and it would get too loud and too hard to concentrate. These individuals are in charge of deciding which competitors move on to the final round based on their scores, and which competitors receive first, second, and third place based on their scores.
Being in charge of "Draws" is also an area that a team member could be in charge of. In high school Forensics, there are three categories were the competitor draws slips of paper from an envelope. They draw three strips of paper first and each strip has a topic or selection of a story that the competitor will need to perform. They pick one topic and are given 30 minutes to prepare their speech. The students in charge of "Draws" makes sure each competitor does not have the same topic they had in the last round, does not have the same topic as another competitor in their round, and draws at the correct time. There are normally about nine SMSU team members in charge of the draws.
The information table is also an important job for SMSU team members. There are four students at this table and there tasks are:
- Giving Directions
- Taking the judges ballots and then taking them to the tabulation room
- Making sure the judges have filled the ballots out correctly
- Making sure all of the ballots have come in from all of the rounds
Judges are also an important and vital role for the tournament. Some team members that would like a change of pace during the day can take on the responsibility of judging a round.
After the day was done, I felt as if I had walked five miles in high-heels. However, it is a rewarding day and a very fun experience.
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