Eye of the Storm

P-Russ's recap:

SUBJECT: Gavelin' Eagles soar through the Eye of the Storm!

Greetings, all,

With this weekend's Eye of the Storm Speech and Debate Tournament behind us, the Gavelin' Eagles have completed their second post-reboot regular season of competition on the NM circuit. We have three postseason competitions ahead, but first please join me in celebrating what our 23(!)-competitor delegation accomplished down in Rio Rancho at what proved to be the most competitive tournament of the entire season so far:

• Natashia Anderson was a finalist in Program Oral Interpretation and placed 2nd overall! By some measures, she actually tied for first, and she had an unmatched run through preliminaries, taking first in all three rounds! One of the attached pics shows Tash with the other two members of POI's top 3.

• Bradley Redhouse was a finalist and finished 6th overall in Humorous Interpretation, the tournament's most competitive interp event!

• Ciera Charley was a finalist and finished 6th overall in Program Oral Interpretation, her first time every trying this event!

• Marcus Nahalea and Josiah Dineyazhe were both semifinalists in Impromptu, by far the tournament's most competitive event overall! It is pretty much unheard of for Speech events (like Impromptu) to have a semifinal round, but there were well over 30 competitors doing Impromptu this time around.

• Ashleigh Mitchell was the Top Novice Speaker in Program Oral Interpretation!

• Danica Becenti took 5th in Dramatic Interpretation!

Unfortunately, the tournament director has not yet released aggregated results for the competition, so we can't see exactly where many of our other competitors wound up, but we definitely had quite a few more in the top ranks. I'll send a quick addendum email once those results are made public.

So proud of these kids! It was hard to imagine how we'd build off the successes of our first season last year, but the Gavelin' Eagles just don't quit.

Major thanks to everyone who made this possible: Coach Jen Kaskalla for managing and feeding the team and even for jumping in to judge finals for Varsity Public Forum Debate; Darah "Tabroom" Tabrum for judging as well, and for showing up to final rounds and awards to cheer on our kiddos (and take lots of great pics of them in action!); Louise Atene for getting us there and back safely, and for so many other members of our extended community for judging on our behalf (and/or helping us find judges)!

Best,

Russell

Addendum:

Full, aggregated results are in! Please join me in congratulating the following students as well:

• The team of Tamarron Austin and Addyson Salazar, who placed 5th in Duo Interpretation on their first time trying the event! Tamarron and Addy also teamed up to try Varsity Public Forum for the first time and finished 8th in that event.

• Kiona Manson, who placed 6th in Dramatic Interpretation and was that event's second highest performing novice – in her very first S&D outing!

• The team of Ayden Redhouse and Crystal Tsosie, who placed 6th in Duo Interpretation on their first time trying the event!

• Marcus Nahalea, who placed 7th in International Extemporaneous Speaking, just barely missing finals!

• Lola Williams, who placed 7th in Dramatic Interpretation and was that event's third highest performing novice!

• Ashleigh Mitchell, who (in addition to her aforementioned Top Novice Speaker award) placed 8th overall in Program Oral Interpretation!

• Josiah Dineyazhe, who placed 10th in US Extemporaneous Speaking!

• Addyson Salazar, who tied for 10th in Informative Speaking, the tournament's most competitive Public Address event.

• Niejah Davis, who placed 10th in Program Oral Interpretation on her first time trying the event!