Kickapoo High School senior earns accolades at National Speech and Debate Tournament
Birmingham, Alabama hosted nationally qualified competitors from almost one thousand high schools for the 2017 National Speech and Debate Association Tournament June 17-23.
Kickapoo High School senior Connor Rothschild won the national championship in International Extemporaneous Speaking out of approximately 250 of the most elite high school students from across the United States.
"Winning first place in International Extemporaneous Speaking is like an elite gymnast
winning first place on High Bars in the USA Nationals. You're competing against 250 of
the very best in the nation through 13 rounds. That's 13 different topic areas that
students prepare for, not knowing what their individual topic will be until 30 minutes
before they present their speech. Making it to the final round requires a broad
knowledge of foreign policy, precise recall, elite communication skills, and above all
consistency. Students have tournament officials sit in on their rounds to fact check all of the sources they recall from memory. You have to be consistently the best in the
tournament to win the national title,” explained Kickapoo debate coach Jon Marc Baney, in a press release.
Rothschild is one of less than 25 students from the state of Missouri to ever
receive a trophy in a main event at the NSDA national tournament since the first
national tournament was held in 1931.
The last time Springfield Public Schools had a national finalist in a main event was Parkview High School in 2004. Kickapoo’s only other national championship was in International Extemporaneous Speaking in 1991.
As a competitor, he is ranked second in the U.S. and is the top ranked student from
Missouri in NSDA merit points. Rothschild is a 3-time national qualifier to both the NSDA and NCFL national tournaments.
Rothschild has been district champion in multiple speech and debate events in his four years on the team at Kickapoo, and has been a state finalist six times; he won the championship title in 2016 and 2017.
After placing ninth in the nation last year at NSDA nationals, he was invited to compete in the Tournament of Champions in April of 2017, where he was ranked third in the tournament cumulatively, winning the final round of Extemporaneous Speaking.
Rothschild also placed in Public Forum Debate with his partner Whitney Elliott at the 2017 NCFL tournament in May; they were top 20 in the nation.
Rothschild's national championship earned him a $1,000 scholarship from The Council on Foreign Relations and a $5,000 scholarship from EF Hutton. Connor will be attending Rice University in Houston, Texas this fall, majoring in Social Policy Analysis.
For more information visit www.speechanddebate.org.
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