Foothill’s Speech and Debate club competed in the Fall Open Individual Event tournament last weekend.
The Fall Open Individual Event tournament is an individual speech tournament where students present speeches by themselves.
“These are all the individual events, like interpretations, where students take dramatic or humorous pieces and perform them, or pieces that they write themselves,” explained Speech and Debate advisor Jennifer Kindred.
Foothill students achieved highly in the individual competitions as well as winning third place Sweepstakes overall.
“We did really well. We had a number of certificate winners. The trophy winners were Ben Limpich who got sixth place in Impromptu, Fidelity Ballmer got third place in Extemporaneous, and Ana Bello got first place in Extemporaneous. But the more exciting news was that we won third place Sweepstakes overall. That was the big news,” said Kindred.
The Sweepstakes winners are determined based on the scores from the Fall Open Individual Event, the Debate Tournament on November 23 and the Fall Congress.
“They take all the scores from all three of those tournaments and that’s what determines the sweepstakes. Over the course of those three tournaments, we got third place sweepstakes overall,” said Kindred.
Foothill competes in the Tri-Valley Forensic League, which is very large.
“It’s most of the San Fernando Valley, all of Santa Clarita, all of Ventura County, all of Santa Barbara County, all of San Luis Obispo County. That’s how big our league is. Now, not all schools show up at any one tournament,” Kindred said.
Sophomore Khaila Hartung-Dallas participated in the events Impromptu and Spontaneous Argumentation (SPAR) and was awarded an Excellent Certificate in SPAR.
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“I really like it. It’s really nerve wracking at first because getting up and speaking in front of people is hard, but it’s been a lot of fun,” Hartung-Dallas said.
Junior Ben Limpich won a trophy for placing sixth in Impromptu.
“Impromptu is just a single person event. You go into a room where there are other people. You get two minutes to prepare a speech. After, you are given three topics to choose from,” explains Limpich.
He also feels that Impromptu is very “spontaneous.”
“For example, I talked about Buddhism and ‘Game of Thrones,’” said Limpich, “My first speech was about ‘Game of Thrones,’ my second one was about expression, my third one was about, specifically ‘The Iliad’ and ‘The Odyssey,’ but I talked about Buddhism in it.”
Limpich also says that Speech and Debate helps him in school.
“Impromptu is essentially a five paragraph essay in speaking format. And it helps you a ton when it comes to any type of essay in English or in school as well,” he said.
