Wednesday is traditionally the day when things go crazy. If it can break it does, but we usually overcome. This note will talk about some of that, but this should not be construed as an indication that the tournament is going poorly. An event this big has many things that go wrong but very few people notice it. Even at the worst of moments (like in Atlanta at Georgia State) people think everything is fine.

Wednesday is also a bit different because the “funeral” dress of people starts to break down. The first two days it seems as if everyone is dressed in black. Men have black suits and women have black dresses or black pants suits. It seems kind of strange. Then, on Wednesday, after some people are out they start wearing different colors and those in supplemental events even allow themselves to wear something different. As the week goes on fewer and fewer people are wearing black. I found that color theme to be kind of depressing, though if I were a Goth I might have liked it.

Today is the day that supplemental events begin. They have pre-registered and then re-registered. They enter events like prose, poetry and extemp commentary. This meant that the library at Derby high school now had a bunch of new tab rooms. We also added the original oratory tab room that moved up from Derby middle school. It was getting a bit crowded, but we were able to allocate turf satisfactorily. This meant that Wednesday morning was an incredible crunch for rooms even though this is a huge high school. We used every room in the place, and some that contestants and judges may not have liked, but it was better than outside. Before my era I heard that some events were scheduled in places like “Tree #3” or “End of Hall.” The addition of supplemental events on Wednesday recharges the tension in the administration of the tournament.

We had some interesting ballots turned in: one with no ranks, one with two fives, and one with two firsts. What are these people thinking? We found them and got them changed.

At Wichita Easy high school the public forum tab room thought their room was too cold and they turned the thermostat to 80 degrees. This blew their power out for a little while. Then they lost a whole round of data and had to enter it again. That didn’t stop them from being on time, however.

After three days we had no protests at Derby where main speech and supplementals were. Zero. Nice work.

We found judges who were handing off ballots to other people, which is totally forbidden. One person even made up a code number so that when we looked them up they did not exist.

We did have some afternoon meltdowns. Supplemental events got delayed by as much as ninety minutes, which became a problem. Sectioning went all wrong in humorous interpretation and the round was delayed when it had to be redone. Then we discovered that as we approached the semifinals in humorous that two students who should have advanced did not. This happened because one section’s results had been lost in the computer that committee was using, but not in our main backup computer. Rich could not even figure out how that could happen. The students were rescued and put back in so that they were not damaged. Good job catching that one.

I paid a nice visit to Wichita East in the afternoon where Sarah is in charge of logistics and all seemed to be running smoothly. It really is a lovely old school.

I want to end by talking about Ron Steinhorst. He is amazing. He knows most of the judges, he never makes mistakes, and he is always cheerful and polite, even when others are not. He is one of the main cogs of this tournament. If Ron isn’t involved I am not sure I want to be. He is a great role model for all of us. Respect.