Dear Speech Coach,

 

It is our pleasure to invite you to the Scottsbluff Speech Invitational, which will be held Saturday, January 18, 2025. This meet will be held at Scottsbluff High School. We look forward to hosting each of your teams for what will be a day of exciting competition.

 

Enclosed you will find all of the necessary information to prepare your team’s entry for this tournament. 

 

NOTE: Judging this year will be based on place only; points may be included in the ballot but will not be used to determine who breaks to the final round.

 

We will be using an online registration program again this year, so you will enter all of the requisite information needed to complete your entry through our tournament entry site: Speechwire.com, which will electronically generate invitation materials and email them directly to you.

 

All PRELIMINARY entries are due no later than January 15th, that way we can begin to make ACCURATE room and judging assignments. As always, dropping students may be done until the start of the first round, the morning of the tournament. Additionally, to prevent any unnecessary last-minute schedule changes, any school dropping more than five students the morning of the tournament will be charged a $50 INCONVENIENCE FEE. Also, like last year, there will be NO ADDING ALLOWED after the add date, January 15th, at Noon.  Ultimately, as changes occur, please make them online immediately. That way, you can guarantee the accuracy of your entries BEFORE Friday afternoon, when tournament registration will officially close and coaches will be barred from making further changes to their entries.

 

Additionally, each team will be asked to secure ONE JUDGE FOR EVERY SIX ENTRIES THEY REGISTER. Unfortunately, due to the tournament’s increasing size, we are unable to ‘hire’ enough judges to adequately cover each round. Therefore, this year, it will be incumbent upon you and your team to provide the requisite number of judges needed for your entry size (e.g. 36 entries would require 6 judges). If you are unable to locate enough judges to cover your entries, you will be charged $15 for each uncovered judging assignment. For this year's tournament, we will be hiring around 20 local judges. If you are having trouble locating judges, please email or call us. WE WANT YOU TO ATTEND OUR MEET--and we will do our best to help you be able to attend, even if you can't bring enough judges with you.

 

JUDGES- 

Please alert your judges that they will see differences in some events.  

  

 OID has Class A-D participants, therefore, judges will see OIDs that are 10 minutes in length up to 15 minutes in length, so unless an event is over 15:30, time should not be a factor.  

 

For this particular tournament, the following schedule will be used:

 

7:15-7:45 Registration 

8:00 AM  Round 1, Flight A:  

8:15 AM  Extemp Draw

9:00 AM  Round 1 Flight B:

10:30 AM  Round II, Flight A

10:45 AM  Extemp Draw

11:45 AM  Round II, Flight B

1:00 PM  Round III Flight A

1:15 PM  Round III Extemp Draw

2:15 PM  Round III Flight B

3:30 PM  AWARDS

 

Each team will be required to pay a fee of $8 for every individual event entry and $8 for every group event entry. That way, small schools are not penalized for not fielding a full team and will only be required to pay for the entries that they bring. As you register your team, remember: Contestants may compete in more than three events, but do so at their own risk. Plus, those speakers competing in more than three events do run the risk of being dropped if they are too late showing up to their rounds or if they threaten to delay the whole tournament schedule.

 

 

A hospitality room will be offered for judges, coaches, and bus drivers. 

 

At the end of the competition, an awards ceremony will be held in the commons area where plaques will be presented to the champions and runners-up in both varsity classes: A / B and C / D. Additionally, medals will be handed out to congratulate each of the contestants in finals.

 

Finally, we look forward to seeing and competing with you! Good luck as you prepare for the remainder of your season!

 

No food or drink will be allowed in classrooms. 

If students are to eat or drink, this must occur in the cafeteria.

Concessions or other dining opportunities will be available to competitors and attendees.

 

 

Darren Emerick     Staysha Adams        Andrea Powe    Josh Harnish 

(vr24)