COVID has meant travel for speech and debate competitions slammed to a screeching halt last spring, and that hasn’t changed all year. That hasn’t kept competitors from working towards their goals, and one of those is to qualify for national competition through NSDA.

Speech and debate students compete in two different circuits – one is UIL, which pits them against other 3A students. Their National Speech and Debate district, The Yellow Rose District, sees them competing against both public and private schools of all sizes. 

“We are actually the smallest school that has competed the past few years,” coach Melonie Menefee said. “There are several private schools in our group, as well as schools like A&M Consolidated and some larger schools from the metroplex and other cities. The competition is stiff, that’s for sure.”

Typically the group travels to compete in their national qualifier tournament; in fact, the NSDA National Qualifier tournament was the last trip the group made in 2020 before COVID shut things down. Like other contests, this year the event is online, the many of the events taking place last weekend. Originally scheduled to take place February 18-20, the first events moved back a week due to the winter storm; there are a couple of events left to go, and they are being held separately to make the virtual tournament, caused by COVID, to be possible.

 “Things are definitely different this year, and in most cases harder,” Menefee said. “We’ve had to change the way we do things and I hate depending on technology. Mostly, I hate not having the energy and fun that comes from an in-person tournament.”

Interpretive events were sent in on video this year. Freshmen Emma Cocking and Nicollette Arabie did DUO and earned a slot as second alternates to nationals. One of their biggest challenges was that they had to compete via Zoom from two different rooms.

“It was a crazy year preparing for these events and knowing they were going to be online,” Cocking said. “I am really hoping we get to compete in person next year, but I’m very excited to be an alternate for nationals.”

Millie Lane and Jalea Brown competed in Dramatic Interpretation while Ashley White and Kyle Hurst competed in Program of Oral Interpretation. Ashley will advance to nationals this summer.

“I start preparing for this competition at the start of the school year,” junior Ashley white said. “It takes a lot of hard work and great acting to make it to nationals.”

Congress was virtual but a live competition. Jalea Brown, Omar Almeida, Nicollette Sheridan and Kyle Hurst competed. Nicolette and Kyle made finals. 

“It was a whole different concept this year having it over Zoom and just hoping everyone’s internet worked right since it was a live competition,” Hurst said. “But everything went very well and Nicolette and I ended up advancing on to finals” 

NSDA is not over yet; Big Question Debate is left, and Jalea Brown is competing in that event.  In addition, three students are trying out for the World Schools Debate team and two students will be selected to compete in supplemental competitions at nationals.

“I’m really nervous but excited for Big Question Debate,” Brown said. “I’m good on my toes, that’s why I do this competition, just hoping nothing else gets canceled for us this year.”