Georgia Northern Mountain District Qualifier

for the 2026 National Tournament

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Hello! Is your school a paid member of the National Speech and Debate Association (NSDA) and assigned to the GA Northern Mountain District? Do you have students with paid memberships in the NSDA who have earned enough points to merit? If you have answered yes to these questions, your team is welcome to attend our District tournament!

This year's tournament will be held at Sequoyah High School in Canton, GA, on the evening of Friday, January 30th, and Saturday, January 31st. The tentative schedule is posted to the right of this message. ALL EVENTS ARE IN PERSON! Understand, nothing will be offered asynchronously.

Both speech and debate (including BQD) rounds start Friday night, but please note, Congressional Debate will happen only on Saturday. Congress will use NSDA January legislation.

Important - Public Forum and Lincoln Douglas will both use the January NSDA debate topics!

When you begin to register for the tournament, please remember, students may not double enter in a debate and a speech event. The tournament schedule does not allow for this. That being said, this does NOT include Congress. Students may double enter in debate and congress. Conversely, students may double enter in speech and congress. In fact, it is highly encouraged students choose to double enter in congress, or they will have a lot of down time between their last speech or debate round and the time for the awards ceremony.

Each entry is $20. Schools are required to provide one judge per two debate entries, and one judge per five speech entries. If schools fail to register the appropriate amount of judges, a fee of $200 for a judge will be assessed on the school's invoice.

Congressional Debate fees are only $5 for each entry, and there is no judge obligation.

Lastly, please take the time to nominate someone from our district for one of the following awards:

-Coach of the Year (given in honor of NSDA hall of fame member and former coach of Pope HS, Betty Whitlock),

-Student of Year,

-Administrator of the Year,

-New Coach of the Year,

-Assistant Coach of the Year,

-Volunteer of the Year,

-Alum of the Year, and

-Communicator of the Year.

The first five of those have forms online you can fill out at this link:https://www.speechanddebate.org/district-leader-forms-manuals/

If you have a nomination for one of the last three awards mentioned - Volunteer, Alum, Communicator - send those directly to the chair at jamie.wills@cherokeek12.net.

Please consider adding this event to your tournament calendar even if your team does not want to travel to the national tournament this summer. It's a great tournament to help close out your season and supports our NSDA district.

Let us know if we can answer any questions or concerns you may have. Your district committee is here to serve you and help grow your program!

Jamie Wills - District Chair - Cherokee HS

Jonathan Waters – Lassiter HS

Mario Herrera - Midtown HS

Matt Bartula - Sequoyah HS

Colton Major - Cherokee HS