Tall Cotton District Qualifier

for the 2025 National Tournament

Dear amazing members of Tall Cotton,

WELCOME TO The 2025 Tall Cotton NSDA District Meet! We cannot wait to see the awesome things our students will show us and accomplish this year! Below are all the details about the upcoming National Qualifying tournament:

February 20-22, 2025

WHERE: Lubbock, TX at Lubbock Monterey HS and (most likely Texas Tech or a Church in the area for Congress only). Thank you so much to Victoria Wood at Monterey for having us!

SCHEDULE: See the attached schedule to the right for specific times and events.

-Congress starting Prelims at 10 AM on Thursday and Finals NOON on Friday (both at Location TBD)

-IEs/Debate starting at 4:30 PM on Thursday and Friday and will finish out all of our rounds on Saturday with the Awards starting ASAP after verification all at Monterey HS.

NO RESULTS SHOULD BE MADE PUBLIC UNTIL THE AWARDS ASSEMBLY.

ENTRIES:

The deadline for entering students is February 13, at 5:00 p.m.

We will allow double entering but you must fill out the single entry intent portion of the website by registration. This includes students who compete in Congress, Big Questions Debate and those who are nominated for WSD. Any student who does not have this info entered in Tabroom at the beginning of the tournament will not be allowed to double enter. Please refer to the current District Tournament Manual (under pages on right) for restrictions on entries.

Entry fees are as follows:

LD Debate $30

CX Debate $30

Public Forum $30

Big Questions $30

Duo $25

Individual Events $25

Senate & House $15

VERIFICATION:

-All titles of Duo, Humorous, Dramatic, POIs, INFO, and OOs must be entered online when you enter your students.

INTERP: You do NOT need to submit any of the scripts to us for interp beforehand. However, we will check them at registration and be ready to have everything just in case of protest. You MUST bring all the hard copies or proof of publication of all interp events.

OO/INFO: You will need to email Savanna Winn (swinn@seminoleisd.net) the typed up speech that includes the following: highlighted, italicized, or underlined all quoted words, state the number of quoted words, include a works cited page in APA or MLA format, and attest by signature of both the coach and the student that the speech is the original work of the contestant. These are Due by February 7 @ 4 PM.

DEBATE:

Topics are listed on the NSDA website. Be sure to use the Jan/Feb LD topic and the February PF topic. The Congress Legislation is attached to the right. There is no pre-set order in prelims.

WORLD SCHOOLS:

If a student of yours is interested in WSD, make sure you fill out the application. We will pick our district teams like we have in the past.

NSDA Student of the Year and Coach of the Year Nominations and others are due to Jennifer Adams by Sunday February 9 11:59 PM .The form can be found on the NSDA website.

JUDGES: Because of the growing need for judges for our district tournament, coaches will be assigned rounds as needed throughout the tournament. Those assigned a duty by the district committee will not be asked to judge except on an emergency basis.

Our goal is to provide a diverse pool of judges for our tournament. However, we CANNOT do this without your help. Please refer all potential judges you know to our judge chair (coby.evers@saisd.org)We will gladly contact them.

Or here is the form for them to fill out:

2025 Tall Cotton Judge Form

We will not use first year outs unless we get into a bind.

Judge pay:

$30 per IE/Duo round

$40 per Debate round

$100 per Congress round

If a judge needs hotel accommodations, they need to articulate that to the judge chair by FEBRUARY 5th. We will provide accommodations for Thursday and Friday nights of shared rooms, with up to 4 judges in a room.

Thank you all so very much and we CANNOT WAIT to see you all and all the BIG things our students will do not only here, but at Nationals as well!

Best regards,

Your Tall Cotton Committee

If you have any questions, please feel free to contact Jennifer Adams at the following:

Phone: 432-935-1311
Email: jaadams@bsisd.esc18.net