Noah Goes to Nationals

Noah has participated in speech and debate for the past three years.  His goal has been to make it to the National Championship.  The first year, he missed going with his illustrated oratory speech by one spot.  The second year, he missed going with another illustrated oratory speech by one spot.

This year, he gave an awesome informative speech and made it to Nationals!  And once again, he missed going with his illustrated oratory speech by just one spot.

At Nationals, Noah's speech went even further, and he made it all the way to semi-finals.  Noah's speech was on dementia, and he shared some of his grandmother's story in it.  It was neat to see how God used the speech to bless others.  Several judges made a point of telling him how much it meant to them, and Noah got to share the speech on choir tour (after they visited a home for the disabled) and with several other groups.

Here's the speech if you want to see it.



Noah had some other fun speeches this year.  He did a duo called "The Seussification of Romeo and Juliet"  that was so funny with a friend from Cleveland, TN.

He also performed a piece on "Slumdog Millionaire" and the Book of Jonah.

Nationals was held at Oklahoma Baptist University this year.  It was four long days of speaking (Noah), judging (me) and hanging out with friends (both of us).  Here are some of my favorite photos from the week:

 

Next year, Noah's goal is to break his three year, missing Nationals by one spot in Illustrated Oratory streak.  He also hopes to qualify for Nationals in as many categories as possible.  Go Noah!

Next year, the Nationals are in St. Paul, Minnesota.  That's good, because I wasn't that impressed with Shawnee, Oklahoma as a destination.  I did find they have one claim to fame as the home of Sonic, which was right around the corner from campus and frequented by me daily: