January 2, 2020

Dear Colleagues and Student Debaters,

On behalf of the administration and the entire Palo Verde Speech & Debate team, we would like to cordially invite your team to our nineteenth annual Panther Classic Speech & Debate Tournament. The tournament will be held January 24 & 25, 2020 and will feature the best competitors from Southern Nevada.

Over the course of two days individual speech events, debate & congressional debate will be offered on the Palo Verde HS campus. Speech Events including impromptu will be offered with two preliminary rounds tabbed all the way through to determine the top 6 or 7 finalists for the final round. Due to the large entry level in Lincoln Douglas Debate JV LD will have a Panel A & Panel B. Coaches, please divide your entries in each panel as evenly as possible. Please remember to have debaters sign in between 7:00-7:30 am on Saturday morning in the cafeteria. Coach verification will occur by 7:45 am in the TAB room and all unverified entries will be dropped. There will be three preliminary rounds, out-rounds, and a final round in each debate event. Four debate formats will be offered. Students may enter Junior Varsity or Varsity divisions in Policy Debate, Lincoln-Douglas debate and Public Forum; Congress rooms will be separated by JV House and Senate. The novice speech events have been collapsed and novice debate/congress have been combined with the JV debate division. Students placing in the top three within their event will receive a trophy at the awards ceremony on Saturday night. Other top finishers from the break round(s) will also receive recognition and a medal at the Garret Meriwether Awards Assembly.

Please remember that students receiving awards should be in tournament attire on stage. Sweepstakes awards will be acknowledge for the schools that place first through fifth and first through third in small school sweepstakes.  New this year, Palo Verde Speech & Debate will be honoring Garret Meriwether who was killed by drunk driver last May.  The award ceremony has been renamed as The Garrett Meriwether Awards Assembly and the school receiving first place with receive a perpetual trophy to have in their class for the next year and to be returned @ the following Panther Classic. The first place team recipient for small school sweepstakes will receive a trophy as well. On tabroom.com you will find detailed information concerning tournament rules and procedures, entry forms and deadlines, a schedule of events, and some reminders of proper tournament etiquette. Please send entries by Wednesday, January 22nd including drops by 3:00 pm on Thursday January 23rd. If you have any questions or need clarification on anything contained in this packet, please contact us at PVHS -- (702) 799-1450 ext. 3315 -- contact Shiela Berselli via bersesm@nv.ccsd.net

We look forward to having you on campus for our tournament. See you in a few weeks!

Sincerely,

Shiela Berselli                                    Darren Sweikert                   Emily Allen

PVHS Speech & Debate                   PVHS Principal                     PVHS Team President