The afternoon of Friday, Nov. 6, was a busy time for FHN’s Speech and Debate team. For the first time in years, FHN hosted a speech tournament, with 21 schools in attendance. The FHN team began setting up directly after school, and worked until 10:30 p.m. to make sure the tournament ran smoothly. Back in August, the team unanimously voted that they wanted to host a tournament. This was last chance for the seniors, who comprise most of the team, to help host a tournament, so the team jumped at the opportunity when there was an opening to host.

“I was very excited,” senior Tessa Smith said. “But at the same time I was really nervous, because I knew it would be a lot of work and the other schools would judge us based  on how we would pull it off.”

A couple of weeks before the tournament, the team began making arrangements, including mapping out rooms for each event, preparing schedules, organizing paperwork, inviting other schools, and recruiting judges (who were all volunteers). According to sophomore Caitlind Walker, recruiting judges was the most difficult part of the process, and took until only a couple of days before the tournament to complete. The week of the tournament, the team was faced with scheduling changes and getting food for both concession stands and the hospitality room for the judges and coaches.

“I think we had a great experience,” coach Joelle Sanders said. “Students learned a lot about what it takes to plan and coordinate a big event.”

During the tournament, team members were tasked with putting up papers that stated basic rules and setting up rooms for competitors and coaches alike. At the judges table, team members had to deal with assigning new judges in case people who signed up didn’t show. Also, ballots for judges had to be organized. For the most part, the schedule was followed and the tournament stayed on track.

“Overall, I believe the tournament went very well,” Walker said. “Everyone that came got to perform and a judge got to every room, so I consider it a success. There were a definitely problems and things that could have gone better, but we problem-solved well.”