Mountain Home High to host first speech, debate tourney

Mountain Home High School's speech and debate team, the "Talkin' Tigers," will host a major tournament this weekend at the high school and junior high.

It is the first time since the team was formed several years ago that it has hosted a regular-season tournament. The "UBus2Us" tournament is named for the fact that to this point, Mountain Home has always traveled to other schools to participate in speech and debate competition. "It's sort of a tongue-in-cheek name," said team advisor John Pettit. "We got tired of always busing to Meridian or Pocatello for tournaments."

A total of 17 high schools and 305 students are entered in the two-day event. Teams from across southern Idaho, from Weiser to Pocatello will take part.

Parents of some of the Mountain Home team members have volunteered to host the Weiser Team to help cut their travel expenses down.

Parent volunteers also are selling the concessions to raise money for the team and will also serve as judges.

Eagle High School, the top speech and debate team in the state, has entered 43 students in the tournament, which is open to the public.

Friday's events all will be held at Mountain Home Junior High School. Registration begins at 2:30 p.m. with competition beginning at 3:30 p.m. for speech and student Congress events.

The Friday schedule is:

3:30 p.m. -- Draw Round 1

3:40 p.m. -- Round 1 Speech

4:00 p.m. -- Congress convenes

4:40 p.m. -- Draw Round 2

4:50 p.m. -- Round 2 Speech

5:50 p.m. -- Draw Round 3

6:00 p.m. -- Round 3 Speech

7:15 p.m. -- Congress ends

Dinner Break

7:40 p.m. -- Finals, Speech events

8:45 p.m. -- Speech Awards

Saturday both the high school and junior high will host the debate competitions. Lincoln-Douglas debates will be held at the high school, while Public Forum and Policy Debate plus Student Congress will be held at the junior high.

The Saturday schedule is:

8:10 a.m. -- Round 1 Debate

9:00 a.m. -- Congress Convenes

10:00 a.m. -- Round 2 Debate

11:45 a.m. -- Round 3 Debate

1:30 a.m. -- Congress Session Ends

Lunch Break

2:15 p.m. -- Round 4 Hidden Quarters

4:15 p.m. --Awards

4:45 p.m. --Semi-finals

6:30 p.m. --Finals