Belleville is a city in and the county seat of St. Clair County, Illinois, United States. The population was 42,404 at the 2020 census, making it the most populated city in the Metro East region of Greater St. Louis, and in all of Southern Illinois. Due to its proximity to Scott Air Force Base, the city has a significant population of military and federal civilian personnel. It is the seat of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Belleville and home to the National Shrine of Our Lady of the Snows.
The National Speech and Debate Association (NSDA) is the largest interscholastic speech and debate organization serving middle school and high school students in the United States. It was formed as the National Forensic League in 1925 by Bruno Ernst Jacob.
The Ohio High School Speech League (OHSSL) is the body that organizes high school forensic competition in the state of Ohio. The OHSSL provides all of the National Forensic League events, but also provides several other events including Declamation. In the 2001-2002 season, Impromptu Speaking was added as an experimental event. The following year Impromptu was made an official OHSSL event. Following the 2013-2014 season, Impromptu was removed as an OHSSL event. OHSSL also offers many other common events such as debate and IE events such as International and United States Extemporaneous Speaking, Duo Interpretation, Dramatic Interpretation, Humorous Interpretation, Program Oral Interpretation, and Original Oratory. Each of the state districts takes part in a district tournament, called "Littles", where a set number of people can move on to compete in the State Championship.
Duo Interpretation, or often simply called Duo Interp, or just Duo, is an official speech event of Stoa USA, the National Speech and Debate Association, the National Catholic Forensics League, National Christian Forensics and Communications Association, American Forensics Association, and the National Forensics Association. The event involves a pair of performers acting out a literary piece or program under certain constraints, including not making eye contact nor touching their partner, and not using props. Pieces used often include published books, movies, short stories, plays, or poems. Participants may cut anything out of their piece, but cannot add any dialogue. This event can either be dramatic or humorous.
Dramatic Interpretation is an event in National Speech and Debate Association high school forensics competitions. In the National Christian Forensics and Communications Association and the National Catholic Forensic League, the event is combined with Humorous Interpretation to create the Dramatic Performance event. It consists of a piece from any published work, edited to fit within a 10-minute span with a 30-second grace period.
The National Catholic Forensic League (NCFL) is a speech and debate league that was formed in 1951. It is organized into regions that correspond to Roman Catholic dioceses. Member schools include both public and parochial high schools. The NCFL recruits member schools in both the United States and Canada. As of January, 2011, there were 65 active dioceses with NCFL leagues. The IRS recognizes the NCFL as an organization eligible to receive tax-deductible charitable donations.
Individual events in speech include public speaking, limited preparation, acting and interpretation are a part of forensics competitions. These events do not include the several different forms of debate offered by many tournaments. These events are called individual events because they tend to be done by one person unlike debate which often includes teams. This distinction however is not entirely accurate any more given the addition of duo interpretation events and forms of single person debate. Competitive speech competitions and debates comprise the area of forensics. Forensics leagues have a number of speech events, generally determined by geographical region or league preference. While there are several key events that have been around a long time, there are several experimental events around the country every year that can be limited to individual tournaments. Forensics leagues in the United States includes the National Speech and Debate Association, the National Christian Forensics and Communications Association, the American Forensics Association, the National Forensics Association, the Interstate Oratorical Association and Stoa USA. Organized competitions are held at the high-school and collegiate level. Outside of the rules for each event provided by the individual leagues, there are several cultural norms within each region that are not written into law but are almost always followed. Rules for time limits vary by event and by individual tournaments, but there are penalties in every event for exceeding the time limits though the severity of the penalty widely varies.
Humorous Interpretation is an event in competitive middle and high school forensics leagues such as the National Christian Forensics and Communications Association and the National Speech and Debate Association. It consists of a piece from any published work, edited to fit within a 10-minute span with a 30-second grace period. It is judged based upon how the person portrays his or her characters and whether the piece is humorous. Ideally proper portrayal of characters should achieve a comedic effect to the judge. Humorous Interpretation and Dramatic Interpretation pieces are often used for the National Catholic Forensic League category of Dramatic Performance, which has similar rules but allows for a wider variety of pieces.
West Leyden High School is a high school in Northlake, Illinois, United States. It first opened for enrollment in 1959. The school's athletic mascot was originally the Knights until 1981, when the East and West Leyden High School athletic programs merged to create an athletic team currently known as the Eagles.
The Texas Forensic Association (TFA) is an organization that provides and regulates competition in speech and debate (forensics) for Texas high school students. The association authorizes forensics competitions nearly every weekend in Texas for the duration of the forensics season, which lasts from early August until the end of February, with the State competition typically in the first or second week of March.
The Iowa High School Speech Association (IHSSA) consists of member high schools from four districts in Iowa, United States, and offers three categories of competition: debate, large group, and individual events. At the end of each of the three contests, the Cooley Sweepstakes Trophy is awarded. To get to the all-state speech tournament, one must first proceed from the district and state tournaments. At district for speech, there is one judge who issues ratings and every team or individual who receives a "I" goes on. At State there are three judges, and two out of three must not only give a "I" rating, but also give a recommendation.
The Pennsylvania High School Speech League is a high school forensics league. The PHSSL state championship takes place yearly in March at Bloomsburg University. Each qualifying event contains 2 qualifiers from each district throughout Pennsylvania, and the non-qualifying events have one student from each participating school.
The Tarheel Forensic League is the speech and debate league for North Carolina. It was created in 1976 and is made up of 44 schools. League members compete in the debate events of Lincoln-Douglas debate, Public Forum debate, and Congressional debate. Speech events include Extemporaneous Speaking, Humorous Interpretation, Duo Interpretation, Dramatic Interpretation, Impromptu Speaking, Original Oratory, and Radio Announcing.
Grand Prairie High School is a public high school in Grand Prairie, Texas. It is one of three high schools serving the 41-campus Grand Prairie Independent School District, which encompasses the Dallas County portion of Grand Prairie.
Kewanee High School, or KHS, is a public four-year high school located at 1211 E. Third Street in Kewanee, Illinois, a city in Kewanee Township of Henry County, Illinois, in the Midwestern United States. KHS is part of Kewanee Community Unit School District 229, which also includes Central Junior High School, Central Elementary School, Irving Elementary School, Belle Elementary School, and Lyle Preschool. The campus is 40 miles (64 km) northeast of Galesburg, Illinois, 44 miles (71 km) southeast of Moline, Illinois, and serves a mixed city and rural residential community. The school is one of two high schools in the city of Kewanee, the other being Wethersfield High School. The school is within the Davenport-Moline-Rock Island, IA-IL metropolitan statistical area.
The Long Island Forensic Association is a non-profit organization which direct high school competitive speech events. It is affiliated with the New York State Forensics League.
The California High School Speech Association, or CHSSA, is a speech and debate organization offered to all schools in the state of California. It is the governing body for local and state speech and debate competitions in California, with higher-level competition under the auspices of the National Speech and Debate Association and the National Catholic Forensic League, and the Tournament of Champions. The league held its first championship tournament in 1958, and continues to hold championship tournaments every April.
The Southland College Preparatory Charter High School is a College Preparatory Charter High School in Richton Park, Illinois. The school serves the communities of Richton Park, Country Club Hills, Matteson, Olympia Fields, and Park Forest.
The American Forensic Association National Speech Tournament (AFA-NST) is an intercollegiate, individual events based forensics tournament held in conjunction with the first Saturday in April, beginning on the prior Friday and continuing through the subsequent Monday. In comparison to National Forensic Association Nationals, another prominent college-level individual events national tournament, the AFA-NST has significantly more stringent qualification procedures and a smaller, but more exclusive field of competition. The AFA-NST represents the culmination of the forensics season for many collegiate speech teams.
LaRoyce C. Hawkins is an American actor, stand-up comedian, spoken word artist, and musician. Hawkins stars on NBC's police drama Chicago P.D., where he portrays Officer Kevin Atwater. The show is in its twelfth season. Hawkins also has a regular role on the crossover show Chicago Fire.