The Fluvanna County Flying Flucos Speech and Debate team just competed in the Tournament of Champions (TOC) on Jan. 20. They also had to compete with snow and snow days, and in the case of Student Congress, a moved deadline date. So how did the snow play into the prep for the students?
“The snow was actually a massive benefit to my prep. I typically prioritize school work before I start doing debate prep, so the lack of it meant I could prep more efficiently over the course of the week. It also meant I could actually sleep a semi-normal amount in the days leading up to it,” said FCHS senior and captain Austin Feith.
While some appreciated the snow delay, others found it problematic. “It made me less prepared for TOC. When practicing for speech, I need to be in the actual practice to get any work done. When I’m at home, there are too many things that distract me,” said senior Jackson Farley.
Captain Cara Landsberg also found the snow days challenging. “It was hard to prep as a team because we had to cancel our meetings for the snow days. In [Lincoln-Douglas], we normally meet once a week to talk about our cases and help each other prepare. It was hard to stay in contact over the long break and get ready as a team,” she said.
She added, “Honestly, I kind of didn’t want to prep. I’m a great procrastinator, unfortunately, and being off school for so long had my mind on other things.”
In other forms of speech and debate, the competitors can prepare for months or weeks, but the Student Congress category only has one week to get ready for individual events. Normally, the due date for them to submit the legislation they plan to debate is typically the Thursday or Friday before the competition. However, with the snow days, the date was moved to the Tuesday before the competition.
“I would like to say it messed with my prep, but realistically, it was basically just like any other competition. I usually procrastinate until about Tuesday/Wednesday anyway (it’s the best Congress perk), so the moved date didn’t really play much of a role,” said Feith.
He added, “I prepped as if it would still happen while desperately clutching to a little bit of hope that it wouldn’t. Unsurprisingly, it happened, and I prepped properly,”
Overall, the snowball effect of the missed school days on the teams’ prep appeared to be manageable. Feith finished fourth in Student Congress, Landsberg finished third in Lincoln-Douglas, and Farley finished third in Dramatic Interpretation. Student Congress won both the Season and Championship Sweeps, the Speech team won both Season and Championship Sweeps, and the Debate team won runner-up Season and Championship sweeps.
Other students who placed included Kessler Potter (first in Extemporaneous Speaking), Allison Monfalcone (first in Humorous Interpretation), Samatha Carter (first in Storytelling), Angela Cumiskey (first in Poetry), Abby White and Townes Mullinex (first in Serious Duo), Topher Huff and Ruby Godlewski (first in Humorous Duo), Annika Potter and Emma Monfalcone (second in Humorous Duo), Amina Seiden (second in Original Oratory), Tori Owens (second in Original Oratory) and the team of Emma Pittman and Kylie Phillips (second in Policy Debate).
