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UBus2Us speech, debate tournament will draw hundreds to high school
Mountain Home Junior High will host its second annual season speech and debate tournament, the "UBus2Us" tournament, on Friday, Feb. 6 and Saturday, Feb. 7.
The "UBus2Us" name came from the fact that in the past the Mountain Home Talkin' Tigers speech and debate team had to always travel to other schools to participate in speech and debate competition. Last year was the first time the team was able to host its own tournament.
"It means a lot for the students, because it's a local tournament and they don't have to get on the bus," said John Petti, coach of the Talkin' Tigers on what hosting the tournament means for the team.
During this year's tournament, 17 teams will be competing, headlined by defending champion Eagle High School. In total, the event will feature 265 speech entries, 172 debate teams and 66 student congress entries.
Parents of some of the Mountain Home Talkin' Tigers will take part in this year's event by selling concessions and will also serve as judges.
Mountain Home, which finished second in last year's UBus tournament, is entering this year's competition with momentum from wins in both the Twin Falls and Columbia speech tournaments.
"I think we have a much better chance this year than we did last year," said Petti.
On Friday, the competition will feature 13 individual speech events:
(Group A)--extemporaneous speaking, duo interpretation, retold story, radio speaking, panel discussion and expository speech.
(Group B)--humorous/serious interpretation, original oratory, impromptu speaking, salesmanship, after dinner speaking and oratorical analysis.
On Saturday, the tournament will begin the debate portion of the competition where the competing teams will debate in three styles of debate -- Lincoln Douglas, Policy and Public Forum.
Mountain Home, now ranked in the top three among speech teams in state, enters the competition with a team of 72 competitors, while defending champion Eagle will enter 40 students in the competition.
The activities for the two day competition will all take place at MHJHS.
The following is the schedule for this year's UBus2Us tournament:
Friday (2/6/09)
1:30-2:15--registration-in junior high commons.
2:30--Draw Round 1.
2:40--Round 1 Speech.
3:00--Congress Friday convenes.
3:40--Draw Round 2.
3:50--Round 2 Speech.
4:50--Draw Round 3.
5:00--Round 3 Speech.
6:15--Congress Friday ends.
(Dinner Break)
6:40--Finals (speech events)
7:45--Speech awards.
Saturday (2/7/09)
8:10--Round 1 Debate.
9:00--Congress Saturday session convenes.
10:00--Round 2 Debate.
11:45--Round 3 Debate.
1:30--Congress Saturday session ends.
2:00--Round 4 Hidden Quarters.
4:15--Awards.
4:45--Semi-finals.
6:30--Finals.