With 411 degrees, Myers Park is number 30 on the NFLs list of strongest programs. Congratulations to the team on this huge accomplishment.

The team will be at the NFL District Championships this weekend which qualifies students to the National Championships in Las Vegas, NV, in June.

We will post updates as the weekend progresses. Good luck to the 30 Myers Park kids competing!

The Porter Ridge Debate Tournament, which would have been February 23, has been cancelled.

I personally encourage everyone to enter the TFL State Tournament.
As a thank you for your efforts at Laird Lewis – Varsity members will be allowed to go free (room, registration, bus) if they have competed for 3 tournaments this year.
Novice members will be allowed to go free (room, registration, bus) if they've competed for 2 tournaments this year.

Lucas Scholl
Co-President 07-08

Simply put, Laird Lewis was amazing. When Geoff, Lucas, and I started planning this tournament, we pictured a few changes. What we came to see over time was that these few changes evolved into things that we could barely have thought possible. I can speak on behalf of Geoff and Lucas when I say that the past two days surpassed our wildest expectations.

We thanked a lot of people at awards, but one group we could not stress enough is the student volunteers. Without the volunteers, in both large roles and small, there would be no way the tournament could have been successfully run. I greatly appreciate the fact that students stayed on task and obeyed requests with great efficiency. Myers Park is the only high school in the state that has the manpower to run a two-day tournament as big as this one was, and I’m glad we proved it.

On that note, I wanted to take the time to thank a few specific people for their work that I observed. This list is in no way comprehensive, but merely a personal reflection of things I saw and heard throughout the tournament.

Merritt, Simon, David M. – Thanks for taking care of things efficiently, and for Merritt always being ready at the radio to answer questions.

Angelica – Thanks for always being flexible and for working really well with the ballot table in getting judges, from what I could see and hear.

Brian, Rasesh – Thanks for running. I think that says enough. Oh, and Brian for dancing. That was pretty tight.

Wesley, Kevin – Thanks for handling extemp draw and keeping an event that has the potential to have problems run very smoothly, not to mention successfully running our biggest event.

Elena – Thanks for handling celebrity judges so that it was one less thing everyone else had to worry about. From what I could tell we had an amazing range of people who really enjoyed the final rounds.

JD – Thanks for following requests without question and for doing anything and everything required of you. Mega thanks also for organizing the amazing-looking awards setup.

All of the cafeteria staff – Thanks for helping where it likely counted most: keeping the debaters happy by serving them good food.

Vicky, Hannah – Thanks for making sure the tab room stayed organized and that ballots were stuffed properly.

This list is definitely not comprehensive; there are so many other people who deserve thanks: Avantika, Lee, Amberli, Elizabeth S., the list goes on and on. Just know that if you seriously dedicated yourself to volunteering this weekend, which was almost always the case, that your work, regardless of how miniscule it may have seemed, truly had an impact on making the tournament great.

I know this sounds sort of sappy, but making this tournament succeed required a team effort, and I was pleasantly surprised to see that when every individual volunteer did his/her part, the whole tournament worked together like an anthill works with the commitment of individual ants.

So basically I’m saying thank you to all of you for being ants and for making the tournament an efficient anthill.

-Roshan Sadanani

To see when/where you are volunteering, click here (pdf file).

Remember:

• Wear debate apparel
• Check in/out at the info table in the cafeteria
• Find Roshan if you have any problems

There will be a mandatory meeting for ALL Laird Lewis Volunteers to prepare for the tournament. Because of the size, new format, and new prestige that the tournament has, it is imperative that you are present.

The meeting will be on Thursday, January 3, 2008 immediately following school in the Small Cafeteria. The meeting should last approximately 45 minutes.

Please make every effort to attend, after all, it is mandatory. If you absolutely cannot attend due to a previous conflict, please email Geoff Yost. We will work out another time for you to get the information.

Thanks.

This weekend the team competed at North Mecklenburg High School in Huntersville, NC.

The team continued its streak, winning the JV/Novice tournament with relative ease. Placing more then second or third combined, Myers Park ended with 78 points to take the Jimmy K Poole Invitational for at least the third year in a row.

JV and Novice students participated and several Varsity students judged.

In addition, the Varsity Congress Team was at North Meck for the NFL District Qualifiers.

Lucas Scholl ('08) placed First in the Senate and Qualified to Nationals in Las Vegas this Summer!
The team also had several placings in both houses and the senate and featured two of the three presiding officers.

The team has won five of the six local tournaments it has entered this year, often by margins that double second and often exceed second and third combined.
The team will be taking winter break to prepare for hosting the Laird Lewis Invitational and to prepare for the NCFL Qualifying Tournament on January 19 in Forest City, NC.