Dear Colleagues:

It is our pleasure to invite you to attend the 53th annual Marshall University John Marshall Speech and Debate Tournament to be held on Friday, 21 February 2025, and Saturday, 22 February 2025, at Marshall University, Huntington, West Virginia.

This year we will offer competition in 17 different speech and debate events. The events are: Broadcast Journalism, Declamation, Dramatic Interpretation, Duo Interpretation, Extemporaneous Speaking, Humorous Interpretation, Impromptu Speaking, Improvisational/Pantomime Duo Interpretation, Informative Speaking, Original Oratory, Poetry Interpretation, Program Oral Interpretation, Prose Interpretation, Storytelling, Lincoln-Douglas Debate, Public Forum Debate, and Congressional Debate.

Unique features of this tournament:

• We run two sessions of Congressional Debate on Friday morning before the remainder of the tournament starts. There is no judge obligation for Congressional Debate.
• We allow a lot of cross-entry possibilities, including entering up to six speech events. We, however, are no longer allowing cross-entry in Public Forum Debate and Lincoln-Douglas Debate and instead are offering more preliminary rounds in both of those events.
• We include a special speech event each year. This year it will be Improvisational/Pantomime Duo Interpretation.
  
• We ask that schools provide a judge for every eight (8) speech entries and do not require schools to any judges to cover their Congressional Debate entries.
• We ask that schools provide a judge only for every eight (8) speech entries and do not require schools to any judges to cover their Congressional Debate entries. We also treat any Thundering Word team members who are alumni of your school as your judges.
• We do provide lunch on Saturday and snacks throughout the tournament and include a hospitality fee to cover a portion of those costs.

The deadline for entries is Tuesday, 18 February, at 5:00 PM.

If you have any questions, please contact me. We look forward to seeing you soon!

Sincerely,

Dennis C. Taylor

Director of Forensics

Marshall University

Email: taylor41@marshall.edu

Phone: +1 304.541.0332