Dear Colleagues,

The Tarheel Forensic League would like to invite all member schools to the 2022 TFL State Championship to be held April 2nd and 3rd at Pinecrest High school in Southern Pines.  This tournament will be in-person. We will be taking great precautions to ensure a safe tournament, including required masks for all participants and spectators as well as requiring all participants to either be fully vaccinated or have a negative Covid test within 48 hours of the tournament.

This year the TFL will also offer a virtual state championship April 30th and May 1st.  A separate Tabroom page will be set up for that tournament.

Events at this year’s in-person state tournament will be:  Lincoln-Douglas Debate, Public Forum Debate, Congressional Debate, Original Oratory, Extemporaneous Speaking, Dramatic Interpretation, Humorous Interpretation, Duo-Interpretation, Program Oral Interpretation, Impromptu Speaking, Informative Speaking, and Declamation (9th and 10th grades only).  This year students may triple enter between speech events. We will not be able to allow double or triple entry between debate events and speech events.

Students in Open divisions will need to qualify for this tournament through a bid process.  Learn more about that at this link. Instructions on how to enter your qualification bids on Tabroom are available at this link. A JV division will be offered in LD, PF and Congress.  The JV division of these events is open to any student in their first two years of competition with no bid qualification required.  There is also no qualification needed for Declamation, which is limited to 9th and 10th graders.

Please note that we will be using the MARCH/APRIL Lincoln-Douglas topic and the MARCH Public Forum topic even though this tournament is in April.

Please be sure to review all pages in the right hand column on our registration website.  Most of the information you need can be found in the TFL Tournament Manual. All new changes for this year will be highlighted in yellow throughout the manual.  We will post announcements and updates on this website, so be sure to check back regularly. 

PLEASE NOTE OUR IMPORTANT SUPERVISION RULE: At minimum, the Head Coach of Record must be present with his or her school for the entire duration of the tournament.  If anyone other than the official head coach will be supervising the team, the school must present the TFL Executive Committee a letter to that effect signed by both the head coach and school principal. If any team is found at any time without the coach of record or officially approved adult chaperone on campus during tournament hours, the entire school will be disqualified from the tournament and a letter will be written to the school principal. All teams must be supervised at all times while they are on the host campus.

If at any time you have questions regarding this tournament or if there is anything we can help you with, please do not hesitate to contact TFL Chair Keith Pittman (keith.pittman@asheville.k12.nc.us) at your earliest convenience.

Sincerely, 

Keith Pittman (Asheville High/SILSA), Tarheel Forensic League Chair

Crawford Leavoy (Durham Academy), TFL Vice Chair

Mike Bischoff (North Mecklenburg), TFL Secretary

Michelle Boswell (Cumberland Polytechnic), TFL Committee Member

Bilal Butt (Charlotte Latin), TFL Committee Member

Ben Denton (Pinecrest), TFL Committee Member

Shannon Jarman (Cumberland International), TFL Committee Member

Carmen Kohn (Charlotte Catholic), TFL Committee Member

RJ Pellicciotta (Cary Academy), TFL Committee Member