On April 26 and 27, six members of Fairmont Speech competed at the online Last Chance National Qualifying Tournament. This tournament is held after the district qualifying tournament to provide an additional opportunity for speech and debate competitors to qualify for Nationals. Fairmont Speech already qualified three competitors at districts in March: Junior Grace Simpson (Duo Interpretation), Junior Oliver Thedens (Duo Interpretation) and Freshman Leon Yang (Humorous Interpretation).
There were over 1,000 students across the nation competing at Last Chance. For main speech events, those who made it into the top 16 in their category qualified for Nationals. There were four preliminary rounds held at Last Chance before Elimination Rounds which determined the National qualifiers.
Junior Dominick Lund-May advanced to eliminations 1 & 2 and placed 7th out of 116 competitors in International Extemporaneous Speaking and qualified for Nationals. Dominick will compete in the main speech event of International Extemporaneous Speaking along with three other Fairmont Speech competitors who qualified in main speech events in March.
Sophomore Bel Lutterman advanced to elimination 1 in Original Oratory. Bel is going to Nationals in the supplemental event, Expository.
Freshman Allie Streit advanced to elimination 1 in Drama. Allie is going to Nationals in the supplemental event, Prose.
Also, Sophomore Thomas Hamlet advanced to eliminations 1 & 2 and placed 25th in Humorous Interpretation; Junior Isaac Thomas competed at Last Chance in Humorous Interpretation; and Freshman Clark Hazard competed at Last Chance in International Extemporaneous Speaking.
Going to Nationals in June are: Grace Simpson, Oliver Thedens, Leon Yang, Dominick Lund-May, Bel Lutterman and Allie Streit.
The National Speech & Debate Association National Tournament will be held this summer from June 16-21, in Des Moines, Iowa.