Results: Congratulations to Isabelle Taft who placed 3rd in Extemporaneous Speaking, Maya Grandoit who placed 5th in Dramatic Interp, and Marius Jackson & Jahra Gholston who placed 6th in Duo Interpretation. A phenomenal effort by these Jesters! Congrats to all who attended… You did Grady HS proud!

This is a very large national invitational tournament with schools from all over the country in attendance.  The tournament uses three different campuses: Policy Debate is at Georgia State. Public Forum is at Druid Hills HS. All other events are at Emory University.  Students need to be at their respective schools by 4:00pm. Ms. Abbott will be driving some students to the Emory campus, and other students have told me they have rides. All arrangements for rides have been made with parents/teachers driving.  Students are, of course, welcome to arrange their own rides if their parents have a preference.  The tournament is BOTH days for all events, with elimination rounds beginning Sunday morning. Students are responsible for their own transportation to and from the tournament beginning Friday night. For more information on the tournament, visit the tournament website : www.joyoftournaments.com.  There is no cost for this tournament other than food.  Students should bring their competition clothes to school on Friday, January 27. A BIG thanks to the Atlanta Urban Debate League and The Barkley Forum for waiving the fees at this tournament. The parent permission form can be found by CLICKING HERE!

Maps to the various venues. The first map is to Druid Hills HS; The next is to the Dobbs University Center (the DUC) at Emory University; the third is to the General Classroom Building at Georgia State in downtown Atlanta.

                                                                           

The North Fulton tournaments created a series of awards for sustained success by individual students/teams at the 5 North Fulton tournaments: Chattahoochee HS, Johns Creek HS, Alpharetta HS, Northview HS, and Milton HS.  The coaches of North Fulton County schools have created 4 awards that will be handed out at the GFCA Varsity State Tournament awards ceremony. The Jesters won three of the four awards:

The Jim Wade Award: Given to the student that performs the best in Lincoln-Douglas Debate.- CONGRATS TO RACHEL CITRIN FOR WINNING THIS AWARD!!

The Ted Wolfe Award: Given to the student that performs the best in Individual Events. CONGRATS TO ISABELLE TAFT FOR WINNING THIS AWARD!!

The Steve Stein Award: Given to the team that performs the best in Policy Debate. CONGRATS TO HOLDEN CHOI AND BEN DEAN FOR WINNING THIS AWARD!!

Jackson High School Tournament results for Grady HS: Zoe Hamilton and Sam Heller, Finalists, Varsity Policy Debate.

Milton High School Tournament results for Grady HS: LD, Champion- Rachel Citrin; Public Forum, Semifinalists- Ellen Ericson and Riley Erickson, Isabelle Taft and Ben Simonds-Malamud, Co-Champions. Varsity Policy Debate, Semi-finalists- Ben Dean and Holden Choi. Prose/Poetry, Finalist, Qri Montague, 4th place- Jahra Gholston, 3rd place- Marius Jackson.

Here is the permission form for the Milton tournament: CLICK HERE! Thanks to all who are helping car pool and judge. You are awesome! Names of students attending will be posted on Google Groups.

Grady Speech and Debate Tournament 2012: Quest for the Dream from Ben Simonds-Malamud on Vimeo.

Thank you to the Grady HS Community for a fantastic tournament! The first  Martin Luther King, Jr., tournament saw 122 community volunteers, 301 competitors and 50 Jesters and 18 student volunteers helped us to make this a weekend to remember. A special thank you to Inman Middle School for all of their help. It was a fantastic weekend!

On January 13-14 the Jesters will host schools from all over Georgia and neighboring states at our third annual speech and debate tournament. Our Booster Club has worked tirelessly to help assure that students competing either at Grady HS or Inman MS have a great time!

Jesters are required to recruit enough community judges to fill 10 judge time slots for the tournament. The judge recruitment form can be found by clicking here:  Judge Recruitment Form 2011. For additional information, please contact coaches Mario Herrera and/or Lisa Willoughby.