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The 2014 George C. Armstrong Heart of Illinois Invitational, contested each year on the campus of Bradley University in Peoria, Illinois, followed the same script as the previous edition as Lane Hedrick of Rowan County Senior High School (KY) successfully defended her extemporaneous speaking championship. Hedrick defeated twenty-one other competitors and a final round that featured extempers from four different states. In the final, Hedrick took two of the three available first place ranks to defeat Anna Riggs of Munster High School (IN) by three ranks.
Munster High School was the strongest school at the tournament, placing two extempers in finals. In addition to Riggs, Emily Wierman placed third.
Downers Grove North High School (IL) also had two finalists – Dan Brophy and Charlie Stark – and they finished fourth and sixth, respectively.
All of the extempers who reached the final round earned a qualifying leg to this year’s 2015 Extemporaneous Speaking Tournament of Champions (TOC) at Northwestern University. Two extempers – Riggs and Ethan Matsuda of Fullerton Joint Union High School (CA) – finalized their at-large TOC qualification at the tournament. The other four finalists earned their first TOC qualifying leg.
All of the finalists also earned an automatic qualification to the 2015 University of Kentucky TOC in April.
Here are the results of the 2014 Bradley University George C. Armstrong Heart of Illinois Invitational (Click here for tab sheet):