The Indiana University East Annual High School Speech Tournament will be held on Saturday, December 10, 2011, in Whitewater Hall. Registration is from 7:20-7:50 a.m. and the tournament will end by 3:30 p.m. The event is free and open to the public.

The speech tournament is presented by the School of Humanities and Social Sciences.

The tournament will include high school students from surrounding counties. Students will present various speeches in 14 different categories including broadcasting (radio), declamation, discussion, dramatic interpretation, humorous interpretation, impromptu, international extemporaneous, memorized duo, original oratory, original performance, poetry interpretation, prose interpretation, scripted duo, and U.S. Extemporaneous.

All Indiana High School Forensic Association (IHSFA) rules apply for the tournament. Area coaches, Susie Hittson and Holly Hathaway, are organizing the tournament with event chair Elvinet Piard, assistant professor of communication studies and first year public speaking coordinator at IU East.

“Public speaking is an important and desired extracurricular activity. University faculty want students who excel in this activity in their classes. We hope that this event will benefit the larger Wayne County community, including IU East students, faculty, staff, high school students, their parents, teachers and the general public,” Piard said. “Join us in promoting the possibilities and power of the human voice.”

There are no entry fees for the tournament but no more than 30 entries will be allowed per school. Schools may enter up to four competitors in an event. For every five entries a school makes, one judge must be provided for the competition.

There will be four straight rounds and no final. The first round and Extemp draw will begin at 8 a.m. Ribbons will be awarded in all events.

Trophies will be given to the top five schools. Top place finishers in each category will be offered an $800 Red Wolf Scholarship to IU East ($200 per year, renewable for up to four years). Team Trophies will be given to the top five teams overall and ribbons will be awarded to the top ten in each event.

This year students can also win a range of door prizes during the awards ceremony. Sweepstakes will be awarded as follows: 10 points for first place, 9 points for second place, 8 points for third place and 1 point for 10th place.

Piard encourages high schools that are new to speech competitions to review IHSFA rules at ihsfa.org or contact tournament organizers Holly Hathaway (hollyhat@frontier.com) or Susie Hittson (hittsons@nccsc.k12.in.us) for more information on how to participate.

High schools participating in the speech tournament should register online at http://www.speechwire.com. Entries are due by November 30, 2011.