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Durham Academy claimed its fifth extemporaneous speaking state championship in six years last weekend at the North Carolina Tarheel Forensic League State Tournament. Connor Leech of Durham defeated Elizabeth Kingaby of Central Cabarrus High School by two ranks for the title, thereby continuing an impressive streak of dominance by Durham in the category. However, Kingaby nearly won the championship, taking two of the three first place ranks in the final round. An errant sixth place rank doomed her title hopes.
Both Leech and Kingaby were return finalists, with Leech finishing fourth at last year’s state tournament and Kingaby finishing third.
In addition to Leech’s victory, Durham had two other finalists. Abhishek Kodumagulla took third and Jackson Dellinger took fifth.
Four extempers earned an automatic qualification to the 2015 Extemp TOC at Northwestern University by virtue of making the final round at the tournament. They are indicated in italics below.
Here are the results of the 2015 North Carolina Tarheel Forensic League State Tournament (Click here for tab sheet):
The Ohio High School Speech League (OHSSL) held its state tournament last weekend at Canfield and Boardman High Schools. Forty-seven extempers participated in the International Extemp half of the tournament and fifty extempers participated in the United States Extemp half.
The assassination of Russian political activist Boris Nemtsov in Moscow on February 27 shocked elements of the Russian dissident community. Nemtsov, a former deputy prime minister in the late 1990s, had been active in protesting Russia’s involvement in the Ukrainian civil war, and he was a vocal critic of the authoritarian tactics of Russian President Vladimir Putin. Some of his supporters allege that Putin was to blame for the assassination. They contend that Putin may not have ordered the killing, but his nationalistic rhetoric that has labeled dissident Russians as “traitors” and “fascists,” created the atmosphere that led to Nemtsov’s death. The Russian government argues that Putin is not responsible for the crime, saying that Nemtsov’s fellow opposition leaders, radical Islamists, or a scorned lover in Nemtsov’s past – or that of his young Ukrainian girlfriend Anna Durytska – were to blame. American and European officials condemned Nemtsov’s killing, arguing that it shows that Russia is continuing to veer away from democratic processes and growing increasingly intolerant of dissenting views as its economic situation worsens.
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Des Moines Roosevelt High School continued its domination of the Iowa extemp circuit as it swept both extemporaneous speaking categories at last week’s Iowa High School Forensic League All-Iowa Finals for the seventh consecutive year.
Two of the top five extempers in this year’s National Points Race won state championships at last week’s Florida Forensic League State Championship Tournament. In International Extemp, Noah Wexler of Nova Senior High School, who is ranked fifth in the country, achieved an eight-rank victory over Andrew Langford of Lake Highland Preparatory School. This is Wexler’s first state championship and it is the first time that a Nova extemper has won the International Extemp category in seven years. Nova had four of the six finalists in the category, with Sanjay Supan finishing third, Adele Stock finishing fourth, and Eleanor Bock finishing sixth.