I spent a week in North Carolina from April 1st to 8th .for some time on the beach and the National Speech tournament from April 5th to 7th. I left SMSU on a snowy April fool’s day. And it was a rough start because of missing a flight. We spent a few days at the beach, and then on Friday April 4th we drove to Charlotte but stopped an hour and a half away before charlotte at a Waffle House. Once we got to Charlotte, we explored campus a little bit and then it was time for the district meeting. Once that was done, we got food for our house and got ready for the competition. Competing was a long couple of days, but once we were done competing at Charlotte, we flew to Chicago and eventually we got back to Sioux Falls. Once we got to Sioux Falls, we had some trouble with being in the right parking lot. One of the p
eople in our trave group ended up going to the wrong parking lot and once we were able to get to the right spot and we were able to find the right vehicle and be able to get going. We finally got back to campus after driving for an hour and a half and we were able to return to normal. The trip was a lot of fun. The trip got off to a bumpy start.
Head Coach Ben Walker led us to the parking lot at SMSU. We all walked to Both Coach Walker’s car and Katrina Timm’s car, and I noticed something about Ben’s car. His car had a couple of low tires, and his gas cap looked open, he still decided to drive to the Airport. We hit a snowstorm, which ended up wreaking havoc. We had to wait for our plane to Chicago that was delayed because the airport people had to de-ice the plane. This delay caused us to miss our flight to Miami. So, we scrambled and got a flight to New York that was ultimately able to get us to our destination. Once we got to the destination we had to wait and then it was time to get to the house and go to bed.
While it was snowing in Minnesota, we spent a few days at the beach. The first day the waves were nice to swim in. I swam with a couple of people I met from the Middle East. I also got buried in the sand that day and was able to knock the sand off in the ocean.
The next day was not the same story. The waves were higher, and they us over, so we just sat down and appreciatedthe beach. I ended up bringing home an ear infection, along with the sand from the beach home with me the second day on the beach. After my shower the tub was very sandy. I cleaned it out to the best of my abilities before we left for Charlotte on Friday.
We got to Charlotte, and it was a beautiful university. It had robots to deliver food. We went to our district meeting which meant it was almost time to compete in the tournament.
Saturday April 5th , the first day of competition, was very interesting. I could not believe how many people were in their 20’s and had either a service dog or a walking cane. I guess I was in the minority for people not having a service dog or a walking cane. But that’s not the reason we were the
re for. We were there to compete. Competition was very tough; I missed out on making the quarterfinals. and ended up having to watch what was going on. The competition after the prelims just got tougher and tougher. You could not tell who was the best. So, it was just cool to watch and see what was going on. Once all the competition was done, it was time for awards and even awards were long.
The awards ceremony was very long. They had to give an award for work in the community after the speech, then they had to talk a lot before they actually started handing out the awards. They eventually started handing out awards for everyone. They gave out awards for the people who made quarterfinals, semifinals, and finals for each category which is why awards went so long. Then they did the top 20 individual sweepstakes for each person, and Rodrigo Trujillo won the individual sweepstakes with 162 points. And for team sweepstakes they also gave it out for the top 20 teams and Texas ended up winning team sweepstakes with 462 points. SMSU sadly finished tied for l57th place with 0 points.
According to Kansas State’s head speech coach and Goonies guru Craig Brown the awards ceremony went on for two hours four minutes and 54 seconds. Which in my mind was an hour too long. Will whatever I can’t control anything. I don’t want to forget to cite my sources if you want to know how long the awards ceremony went go to Facebook.com and look up Craig Brown. If you want the full list of results for Nationals go to Speechwire.com, look at results click on the one that says AFA-NST in Charlotte along with hit see full results packet. I’m sure Ben Stewart the Speechwire guy would love that you’re on his site and I cited his webpage as a source. SpeechWire Tournament Services – Forensics Tournament Software – Speech, Debate, Congress , Craig Brown | Facebook . The flight back went much more smoothly.
Unlike the first flight from Sioux Falls to Chicago, the first flight back from Charlotte to Chiago was just fine. It was smooth sailing as we were in the air for about an hour and a half. And there was a baby on flight the slept most of the flight, it was cool to see that. When we landed, , I found where our gate was, and we had time to sit down and relax for a bit. I got good Chicago style pizza and waited for the next flight to Sioux Falls to board.
It was a good pizza. After a while we ran into the provost of SMSU and the provost was on the flight back to Sioux Falls with us. So, we got on the flight and all of the speakers got better seats towards the front compared to Speech coach Ben Walker. Coach Walker had to sit behind the provost. It was a great flight back to Sioux Falls, but there was a little problem with which parking lot
to go to when getting back to Sioux Falls.
We were waiting for luggage and one of my teammates got lost looking for her vehicle. We ended up calling her to steer her in the right direction. It took a while, but we all got to the vehicle. It ended up taking a while to locate her, so we just kept talking to her and eventually found her in the parking lot. We finally were able to leave and find our way back to SMSU. It was an hour and a half drive, and it went well, and we landed at SMSU at 5:30 P.M. It was a great trip but it’s great to be back.
