The 2026 Thunderville Joust Invitational & Idaho Falls Food Bas

The 2026 ThunderVille Joust Invitational & Idaho Falls Food Basket Canned Food Drive

We will again be doing a canned food drive competition to help fill the Idaho Falls Food Basket to assist needy families. After Christmas, food banks sometimes have difficulty getting new donations, and this is an opportunity for Idaho Speech & Debate to perform a valuable service. We have trophies for the teams that bring the most canned food: 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place awards. Please encourage each member of your team to bring at least 1-5 cans of food.

This tournament will take place on January 16th and 17th at Thunder Ridge High School. Tournament registration will close on January 14th at 4:00 PM.

The Thunderville Joust will offer Novice and Varsity divisions of:
Lincoln Douglas
Public Forum
World Schools

Varsity/Open only:
Congress

We will be doing the January Public Forum topic and the January-February Lincoln Douglas topics.

Speech will have 3 preliminary rounds and a final round. This tournament will offer the following speech events and SPAR.

Speech events offered:
Impromptu
Panel
Informative Speaking
Humorous Interpretation
Dramatic Interpretation
Duo Interpretation
Original Oratory
Program Oral Interpretation
After Dinner Speaking
Communication Analysis
Sales
Duo Podcast
Retold Story
Extemporaneous Speaking
Spontaneous Argumentation (SPAR)

There will be a fun rule change for Dramatic Interpretation (DI), Duo Interpretation (DUO), and Humorous Interpretation (HI). You may use original scripts!
This means you may craft your own script, or alter an existing one to your taste. In your intros please indicate the author, as you normally would. Using an original script is optional, you may also use a regular script.

Additionally, instead of Radio we will be doing Duo Podcast. Rules will be forthcoming. Duo Podcasting is not a draw event.

Congress Docket: We will be using the Blacksnake Docket with some minor alteration as schools are or are not present. If you would like different bills than your current ones on Blacksnake, or if you did not attend, please submit bills, no more than 2 per school, to baronj@d93mail.com
Please have this done before January 6th, 2026. The docket will go out January 9th, 2026. Please make sure the formatting is correct for each bill (bill templates are available https://www.speechanddebate.org/legislation-templates/).

Double entry is permitted. Do not enter students into a draw event and Panel. Do not enter students into two draw events.

Each school may bring a maximum of 16 debate (NPF, OPF, NLD, OLD, NWS, OWS), non-Congress entries. Each Lincoln Douglas count as one entry and each Public Forum team counts as one entry. Each World Schools team counts as one entry. Schools may not enter more than 8 entries into any single division (without management permission; they will be waitlisted). Schools may enter 8 students in each speech event. However, we will attempt to fit everyone in that would like to compete, wherever possible.