District S&D

P-Russ's recap:

SUBJECT: Districts recap: 2 more National berths + Rainy Crisp named Admin of the Year!!!

Good evening, NPS community,

Well, the New Mexico speech-and-debate season has finally drawn to a close. Yesterday and Friday, a record-breaking number of Gavelin' Eagles (27!) competed at Albuquerque Academy in the NM District S&D Championship and National Qualifying Tournament. The top performers at this event earned themselves an invitation to one of the oldest, largest, and most prestigious academic competitions in the world: The National Speech & Debate Tournament. Needless to says, it's a competitive affair!

Nevertheless, we came away with a slew of victories, including three particular causes for celebration:

• NATASHIA ANDERSON HAS QUALIFIED FOR NATIONALS! In a repeat of her stunning performance at States, Tash beat out all the competition to rank as the district's top performer in the event of Program Oral Interpretation. This will be Tash's second trip to Nationals and the third time she has qualified for Nats (she qualified last year in both Dramatic Interpretation and World Schools Debate, attending to compete in the latter).

• HAYLEI REDHOUSE HAS QUALIFIED FOR NATIONALS! Haylei was selected from an unusually competitive pool of over 30 applicants to represent both NPS and all of NM as a member of one our district's two World Schools Debate teams! 

• RAINY CRISP WAS HONORED AS THE NEW MEXICO DISTRICT SPEECH & DEBATE ADMINISTRATOR OF THE YEAR! You may have heard me preview this exciting news after our parade on Thursday. Thanks to that advance notice, Ms. Crisp was able to join us for the end of the tournament, witnessing Tash's and Ciera's final round and joining us for the awards ceremony. It was so wonderfully touching to see students and coaches from across the state celebrate Ms. Crisp and all she has done to make speech and debate possible for our kids. Actually, this qualifies Ms. Crisp for Nationals as well, as she is now in the running against administrators from the other 100+ NSDA Districts for the title of National Administrator of the Year. Go, Rainy!

There are quite a number of other remarkable achievements worth noting here as well:

• Ciera Charley broke to finals in Program Oral Interpretation, placed 7th overall, and is the district's 4th alternate in that event!

• The team of Addyson Salazar and Tamarron Austin are the district's 2nd alternates in Duo Interpretation and placed 3rd overall!

• The team of Nalanaya Austin and Natashia Anderson are the district's 3rd alternates in Duo Interpretation and placed 4th overall! Nal also placed 10th overall in Dramatic Interpretation and is the district's 7th alternate in that event.

• Kiona Manson narrowly missed breaking to finals in Dramatic Interpretation but nevertheless is the district's 4th alternate and placed 7th overall!

• Avery Himmelreich was quite close to finaling in Program Oral Interpretation, placing 9th overall! She is the district's 6th alternate in that event.

• And Aspyn Kaskalla too was within reach of finals in Informative Speaking, placing 9th overall! She is the district's 7th alternate in that event.

• The team of Rodericka Hale-Toledo and Marissa Mullin are the district's 4th alternates in Duo Interpretation and placed 5th overall!

• The team of Danica Becenti and Ayden Redhouse are the district's 5th alternates in Duo Interpretation and placed 6th overall! Danica also placed 8th overall in Dramatic Interpretation and is the district's 5th alternate in that event as well.

• Daykiin Draper and Kaycie Muneta tied for 9th place in Humorous Interpretation and thus both have a claim to being the district's 7th alternate in that event! (I think they'd need to run a tiebreaker if it happened to come to that).

• ShiShayla Aragon is the district's 6th alternate in Dramatic Interpretation and placed 9th overall!

Finally, the results from the Congressional Debate Championship that took place a month-and-a-half ago have at last been officially rendered into national qualifications. Students can only attend Nationals in one event, so, thanks to some students from other schools qualifying in other events in which they've decided to compete instead, we have a few exciting updates:

• Marcus Nahalea has moved up from the district's fourth qualifier in House to the second! This means that he will be the second-highest ranking student from NM to attend Nationals in this event!!!

• Aspyn Kaskalla has moved up from the district's eighth alternate in Senate to its second!

• Tamarron Austin has moved up from the district's tenth alternate in Senate to its fourth!

Finally, in a tangentially related bit of exciting news:

• Niejah Davis competed in the event of Poetry in the National Speech & Debate Association's last two nationwide weeknight online scrimmages this past week, and she finished 2nd and 3rd in her respective rounds!

Huge thanks to all the people who made Districts possible! Immense props to Assistant Coach Malyssa Egge who came down from Bluff yet again to chaperone, judge, and offer boundless support for our kids. Also to Assistant Coach Jen Kaskalla who joined us for the end of the tournament and organized a wonderful celebratory dinner on our way out of town. An ENORMOUS thanks to Mary Dickey for getting us there and back safely, and just generally for dealing with us! And to all the parents and other community members who supported us, especially those who gave their time to judge on our behalf! I particularly want to thank Ms. Tabrum, who – despite having just completed a very busy week – drove all the way down Saturday morning to judge two rounds!!!

Also, as this is the end of the main part of our season, thanks are in order to all the folks who have worked behind the scenes to enable our team to compete and thrive. Thanks again to Rainy Crisp of course, but also to her unstoppable partner-in-crime Tamara Begaye, who puts in so much time managing our team's logistics! And to Diane Dembowski, Eve Bluehouse, and everyone else in the Business Office for the incredible amount of work they devote to making this all happen. Additionally, to Residential and Security for working extra on weekends for us. And finally, to the other members of the Admin team as well as to the Board for their ongoing support! Ahéhee'!!!

So proud of everything these kids have achieved this season, and I'm wicked excited to take Natashia, Marcus, and Haylei to Nats in Iowa in June! Just like last year, we have also received two additional slots to award to a couple worthy competitors of our own choosing, so we will bring at least five total to Nationals! Plus, there is one final opportunity provided for students to qualify, a big online tournament offered by the NSDA in late April, so that number may yet increase a tad more.

Best,

Russell