Weather forces cancellation of yearly speech and debate event

Lydia Shearman and Daniel Martinez go over their strategy as they prepared for the U-Bus-2-Us tournament. However, winter weather prompted organizers to cancel the year's event at Mountain Home High School.

After weeks of preparations, foul weather prompted organizers to cancel what was expected to be the state's largest-gathering of high school speech and debate contestants in Mountain Home.

More than 500 students representing 24 school across the state were scheduled to attend Mountain Home High School's annual U-Bus-2-Us speech and debate tournament.

However, snow cancellations in Boise and Meridian early Friday prompted the high school here to cancel the first day of public speaking events, said John Petti, who coaches the Talkin' Tigers speech and debate team.

Had the weather improved on Saturday, the tournament would've continued with its debate and student congress events, Petti said. But with the forecast calling for additional snow, the decision was made to cancel the rest of the tournament.

In addition to encouraging competition between schools, the tournament here represents the Talkin' Tigers' largest fundraiser of the year, according to Petti.

"We earn about $150 per student from the tournament" through food sales, he said. "This has allowed Mountain Home High School students to attend tournaments free over the years."

In comparison, other schools charge their students $20 to $40 to attend similar tournaments.

Volunteers prepared a lot of food in anticipation of last week's event, and the speech and debate students are still hoping to sell all of it, the coach said. As a result, the team will hold a "Talkin' Talent Food Fest" from 6 to 8 p.m. today, Feb. 12, at the junior high school commons area.

Food is available on an all-you-can-eat basis with donations requested for those attending the event.