PHOTO: Ombudsman room at Derby high school

Tuesday involves the continuation of prelim rounds and then the first elimination of contestants after six prelims. It is a full tilt day, and then had sadness for those eliminated and ecstacy for those who are advancing, In speech people advance based on a breaking point identified, while in debate those with eight ballots after six rounds (two judges in each round) advance. Here are some stories from Tuesday from my perspective, on the inside watching how things run.

We had an electrical surge at Derby high school. Only one copmputer crashed, but we had a lot of lights go out. We were in the middle of a round. We deployed all staff to go and see what was happening. Some rounds could continue with natural light, but others found themselves in complete darkness. The huge extemporaneous speaking prep room in the gym was plunged into darkness and even with the doors to the outside opened there was not enough light. Some lights came back on but others did not. Apparently the light switch are linked to motion sensors, and the motion sensors take a few moments to recycle after the power outage. So, we advised people to jump around in th rooms until the lights came on. This worked well, and after a brief delay we were back in action.

<== Posters go up

It was at just this time to Scott was called and had to dash away to the downtown area on a “police matter.” It turned out that there had been a bomb threat to the Century II Center. A local television station had received an email saying, “Century II, noon, boom.” The location was evacuated and the police came in to sweep the area. Since we were only using two rooms it was easy to move them to another site. We survived this pretty well, but a bomb gthreat at a main site in later days would be a disaster. I started developing a bomb threat plan. More later.

The posters people had been working on came into play as after round six they used them to reveal who would be advancing. This has really grown as an NFL tradition through the years, and the event committees take a lot of care in designing and executing their poster. When the time was coming up the auxiliary gym, where the posters were to be raised, was packed full of people and it was impossible to get in. Then we had to use a ladder to get up high enough to hang the posters. With the surging crowd it was a little dangerous and I started working on a plan to reduce the occupational hazards involved. There were cheers and tears when the posters went up.

Those in extemporaneous speaking who were eliminated marched right next door and started breaking down their set-up, usually involving tubs full of magazine articles as reference materials. But, the extemp draw for those advancing was about to start, so Bob Jones had to chase those eliminatd out so he could get started.

<== Extemp prep room

There have been very few protests at this NFL nationals. It seems like there have been more in the past. There were two in policy debate, and they seemed to be about falsification of evidence. It is amazing that we have so many contestants and have had so few protests. A procedure is in place to handle any protest, and it involves filing it with one of the ombudsman at the site and then they can call for a broader hearing and a vote by the executive council in some cases. I like to stay away from these sorts on things.

We discovered late in the day that the computer program had assigned judges to go to a judge replacement pool the next day at the Derby middle school. BUT, there were no Wednesday events at the middle school. This meant we had to assign someone to be at the middle school the next day to tell them where they should really go.

<== Crowd for postings

Those eliminated from the main events had  chance to continue competing in supplemental and consolation events. They have to register when they enter originally, and then reregister on Tuesday night. That took place at the Schwan party.

The Schwan party is now an annual event and they really throw a big party. This time they rented out the entire zoo here in Wichita, and had rides, a dance floor with a DJ, lots of pizza and ice cream, stunt planes performing overhead, and a lot more. Apparently, it was a blast and was completely free for the students. Thanks, Schwan!

More coming tomorrow.