Hello Speech Community!

The West Texas A&M Forensics team and Communication Department formally invite ypuou to our annual Guy P. Yates High School Speech and Debate Tournament. This tournament will be hosted in person on our lovely campus in Canyon, Texas on October 18th and 19th. Entries will be due on Tabroom by 10/14 at 6pm.

This invite will cover all the events we are offering this year, patterns, entry limits for cross-entries, judging expectations, awards, and the all-important schedule. With the success of last year’s limited preparation sweepstakes, we will maintain the same flights as last year. GPY 2024 will be a NIETOC bid tournament, and we will have a limited entry World Schools Debate option. All legislation will be published on Tabroom for debate events.

This year we will be using Remind to communicate the start of rounds and when postings have dropped. I am optimistic that this will help keep the tournament on time. Please add yourselves, and additional coaches to get information tournament days. The name of that “class” is GPY2024. Please keep all Remind additions to coaches only we ran out of space in earlier years. My folks will be active on Remind, please pass on critical information to your students through your own means.

https://www.remind.com/join/gpy24

I am thrilled to have you join us in Canyon in October! If you have questions, comments, or things I’m forgetting, please do not hesitate to reach out to me at kabele@wtamu.edu.

Dr. Kelsey Abele

Director of Forensics

Assistant Professor

West Texas A&M University

Events Offered

Symbols:^= Debate events, *= Public Address events, ~= Interpretation Events, += Limited Preparation Events. These are the categories used for tabulating sweepstakes/bowl awards.

Novice Entries:

As this tournament is earlier than prior years, we would like to encourage a robust Novice entry. We will run separate novice IEs under the following guidelines:

• novice entries alone in that event exceed 11

• varsity/open division has at least 30 entries

• we will not panel finals of Novice events. Novice event champions will not be eligible for WT Forensics team scholarships.

We will not run any events with fewer than 6 entries total (unless they can be combined with an open division). Novice events do not count toward individual sweepstakes awards.

Novice division will be offered in CX and LD when the open division exceeds 16 teams and novice entries can form a separate bracket.

Cross Entries

Students are allowed to cross enter in each IE pattern (2 entries in flight A, and 2 in flight B). Students are also permitted to have a Debate event (on Friday), and the 4 IE entries. Students with a total of 5 events over the weekend will be eligible for the Pentathlon Award. Students are responsible for making it to all rounds on time. Students who do not make it to their rounds promptly will be disqualified, that includes out rounds.

New Scheduling alert: In an effort to celebrate the work done by all competitors in LP events, we have added a bowl for Best LP speaker. Students will be eligible to compete in both International Extemp, AND Domestic Extemp as they will occur in different flights.

For reference:

Debate events (held Friday): CX, LD, Congress, and World Schools (limit 10 entries, 2x school)

(Saturday) IE Flight A: Prose, HI, DX, OO, Duet, Impromptu

(Saturday) IE Flight B: Poetry, DI, Duo, IX/FX, Declamation, POI, Info

We will run semifinals for all IEs that exceed 50 entries.

We will have semifinals for Congress with more than 61 entries.

Make checks payable to:

West Texas A&M Forensics

P.O. Box 60754

Canyon, TX 79016

Entries due on Tabroom 10/14 at 6pm

Awards Descriptions and list

In addition to awarding the top 6 in every IE, and elimination rounds for debate events, we are offering 5 top speaker awards.

Best Debater: Awarded to top speaker across debate entries. Students are considered independently for this award in partnered debate events based on speaker points (CX, LD, WS, Congress)

Best Interper: Awarded to top speaker in interpretation events. This award functions as an “indy sweeps” of interp. (Duo, HI, DI, Prose, Poetry, POI, Duet)

Best Limited Preparation Speaker: Awarded to the top speaker in limited preparation events (IX, DX, Impromptu). This award functions as an “indy sweeps” of LP.

Best Public Address: Awarded to the top speaker in public address events. This award functions as an “indy sweeps” of public address. (Info, OO, Declamation)

Pentathlon: Awarded to the top speaker who has competed in five total events. Students must be in 5 events to be eligible for Pentathlon.

For each event winner there will be a $100 scholarship to compete for the WT forensics team upon enrollment and competition at their first tournament.

We will also award Team Sweepstakes for the top three schools.

Tabulation

We will panel final rounds of varsity IE events, and debate events semifinals through finals so long as there are judges available. Priority will be given to paneling finals over semifinals.

For debate events we will break brackets when applicable, we will power match High-Low within brackets.

Sweepstakes formula:

IE finals/ Congress

Debate

Judges please

In the past WT has been lucky enough to have a robust judging class. I am slowly building these ranks, but again ask that each team bring several judges (the more judges you bring, the less each of you must judge!). I am expecting this tournament to be quite large and require upwards of five-dozen judges per round. As much as I would love to give coaches a judging break, I will prioritize an on-time tournament. So in lieu of charging you judging fees, I will ask you to work collaboratively and judge where you are asked, when you are asked. Please enter your available judges on Tabroom so that we may schedule you in advance. We will have a judges’ lounge prepared with food and snacks.

Schedule (anticipated, up to revision depending on entries)

Friday (Debate)

Saturday (IEs)

Food Offerings

We are happy to feed all of our judges. Competitors will be able to access food court offerings in the JBK. Across the street from our home building in Canyon in a United for all your additional snacking needs. The JBK is cashless. They also have reloadable souvenir Buff Gold Cards for students to preload money onto a debit card on campus. Students may do this individually or you can contact the Buff Gold Card office to get preloaded ones (Caleb Brandon 806-651-4654 or Kristi Steelman 806-651-4653). You may also schedule catering (Ollie Sims 806-651-2709) or order from off campus.

Registration

Registration will be held outside of the Hazel Kelly Wilson room near the JBK front desk. This room will also function as our tabroom. I will ask folks to keep tabroom as quiet and efficient as possible throughout the tournament. This will also be where ballot pick up/return/tab. The judges lounge will inFAC 176.

Buses and parking