Springboard Capstone

P-Russ's recap:

SUBJECT: The Gavelin' Eagles dominate in a nationwide tournament! 🥇🇺🇸🦅🇺🇸🥇

Greetings, all,

This weekend, seventeen of our students competed in the Springboard Capstone, a nationwide online competition run by the National Speech and Debate Association. Although we were up against over three hundred students who hailed from far and wide, your Gavelin' Eagles were all over the leaderboards! 

Please join me in congratulating the following students on their incredible performances:

• Avery Himmelreich, who placed FIRST IN THE NATION in Poetry! This is especially incredible considering this happened to be the tournament's most competitive event!!! Avery also placed 4th in Original Spoken Word Poetry! 

• Natashia Anderson, who placed FIRST IN THE NATION in Prose! Tash also placed 3rd in Program Oral Interpretation, 6th in Original Spoken Word Poetry, and 7th in Storytelling!

• Kaleb Jones, who placed 3rd in his chamber of Congressional Debate!

• Aspyn Kaskalla, who placed 3rd in Original Spoken Word Poetry! Aspyn also placed 4th in Program Oral Interpretation!

• The team of Bradley Redhouse and Addyson Salazar, who placed 3rd in Duo Interpretation! Addy also placed 6th in Storytelling!

• Sierra Nakai, who placed 3rd in Novice Dramatic Interpretation!

• Kiona Manson, who placed 5th in Original Spoken Word Poetry! Kio also placed 6th in her chamber of Congressional Debate

• Kiara DeChee, who placed 6th in Informative Speaking!

• Jerrison Yazzie, who placed 6th in Novice Storytelling! Jerrison also placed 10th in his chamber of Congressional Debate!

• Ayden Redhouse, who placed 7th in Original Spoken Word Poetry!

• Ciera Charley, who placed 9th in Original Spoken Word Poetry!

• Kaiya Longoria, who placed 9th in Novice Poetry!

So proud of these kiddos. The medals are in the mail!

Thanks to Security for taking care of those of us who competed from campus today and to Residential for accommodating some of those kids. And a big thanks to Coach Kaskalla for helping out at school and judging — as well as to the numerous other community members and supporters who judged on our behalf. Since this was an online tournament, some of these helpers were unusually far flung, such as alum Tamarron Austin who judged from the campus of Northeastern University way off in snowy Boston!

I hope everyone is having a lovely weekend. Thanksgiving break is just around the corner now!

Best,

Russell