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Friends and Colleagues,

I’m pleased to invite you to the 2020 Chiawana Tournament, this December 11-12, hosted digitally on NSDA Campus and Tabroom.com. This year’s tournament will feature competition in both speech and debate.

Many of you have never heard of us! “Chiawana” is a Native American word that means “big river.” Our school is in Pasco, Washington, just a mile or so from the banks of the Columbia River. We are in our eleventh year of operation and have been the largest school in the state (based on enrollment) for most of that time. Our mascot, the Riverhawk, is also known as the osprey, a bird of prey native to the area.

We will have registration open for open and novice divisions in Lincoln Douglas, Public Forum, and Congressional Debate, and open Big Questions Debate as well as Dramatic, Humorous, and Dual Interpretation, Extemporaneous, Impromptu, Informative, Program Oral Interpretation, Original Oratory, and Editorial Commentary. We will collapse divisions as necessary based upon registrations. Additionally, we offer an open division of Tall Tales and Spontaneous Oral Interpretation.

For those who are interested in Policy Debate, we recommend the Saint George’s Invitational. You can find it on Tabroom at https://www.tabroom.com/index/tourn/index.mhtml?tourn_id=17484

We believe that judge feedback is an important learning tool for all competitors, and we are not limiting entries in speech events. As long as you have judges to cover, competitors may enter as many speech events as they wish/are capable of. We do not require a tournament-specific introduction on video entries, so if a student has a video from a previous tournament, they are welcome to submit it, even if it has a tournament-specific introduction.

Some key details:

● Speech (including short preps) will be asynchronous. Recordings will be submitted well ahead of the traditional Friday start of the tournament, so please consult the schedule to prepare.

● Speech judges will receive pre-recorded preliminary ballots Friday morning, and they must be returned by 9 a.m. Saturday. Speech judges must also be available to adjudicate finals asynchronously on Saturday within the finals time window. Please be intentional in entering your judge time conflicts.

● Debate will be synchronous, using NSDA Campus on Friday and Saturday. Congress might use a separate platform due to user limitations, we will send more information on the platform and access codes when rooms are determined.

This year, given the electronic tournament format, we will have an ombudsperson available for competitors and coaches alike during the course of the tournament. We follow the National Speech and Debate Association principles of ethics, equity, and inclusion. We believe that debate should be a safe and fair space for all participants, and we will do our best to make this happen. Ombudsperson contact info will be prominently featured on the Tabroom page.

If you have questions about the tournament, please contact Vicky Hyde at vhyde@psd1.org. Please note that due to the changing landscape, changes to procedures may be necessitated. Please review the rules in advance.

Thank you for all you do and have a great season!

Vicky Hyde,

Head Coach/Tournament Director

Inland Empire NSDA Committee Member

Sara Hyde,

Assistant Coach/Tabroom Chair

Inland Empire NSDA Committee Chair