With the Wake Forest National Early Bird less than two weeks away, extempers across the country are preparing for the beginning of the 2009-2010 season. Last season saw California emerge as a stronger extemp power, with Bellarmine College Prep’s impressive showing at NFL Nationals and saw Stacey Chen of North Allegheny Senior High School emerge as the first official Extemp Cental National Points Race champion. North Allegheny Senior High School also managed to narrowly edge out Bellarmine College Prep for the National Team Points Race.
At Extemp Central, we look forward to another great season and questions have been posted on our site since the first week of August. In a similar fashion, the staff of this year’s Ex Files looks forward to providing coverage of this year’s events in the extemp community. We look forward to providing detailed coverage from the Montgomery Bell Extemp Round Robin, with pairings and results released as they happen, and the possibility exists of live coverage from the Wake Forest Early Bird, the Glenbrooks, and the Extemp Tournament of Champions as well.
This year’s Ex Files staff is also seeing some new additions. We welcome Stacey Chen, Evan Larson (last year’s NFL United States Extemp national champion), Nicholas Cugini, Gilbert Lee (2000 NFL International Extemp national champion), Austin Wright (2009 NFA extemp national champion), and Rob Warchol to the staff this year. Aside from staff turnover, there are also new features to the magazine including Editor’s Corner, where I will break down trends and strategies in extemporaneous speaking, and Extemp Roundtable, where members of our staff will evaluate an extemp question that extempers could see at a local or national tournament.
In this issue, The Ex Files has an interview with Chen, reveals the changes in the points structure of this year’s National Points Race, and provides a topic brief on the size of America’s budget deficit. The staff of The Ex Files wishes everyone good luck who is competing at Wake Forest, Yale, St. Mark’s, and at local tournaments in the weeks and months ahead. The next edition of The Ex Files will be released prior to the Glenbrooks tournament in early November.
–Logan Scisco
Wake Forest Edition (Vol. 2, Iss. 1)
All links below are to PDFs of the original articles.
Complete Wake Forest Edition (.pdf)
From the Publisher by Logan Scisco
Editor’s Corner: The Grand Slam by Logan Scisco
2009-10 Extemp Central National Points Race by Logan Scisco
Catching the Worm at the Wake Forest National Early Bird by Max Webster
National Points Race Champion Interview with Stacey Chen by Logan Scisco
Extemp Roundtable with Nicholas Cugini, Mark Royce, Logan Scisco, and Rob Warchol
Topic Brief: Budget Deficit Politics by Logan Scisco