(Atlantic) Last week four Atlantic High School students traveled to Richmond, Virginia to compete in the National Speech and Debate (NSDA) association’s nation-wide tournament. This was AHS’s 30th time attending the tournament as a school. The four competitors were freshman John McCurdy, sophomore David Blake, junior Bailey Grieshaber and senior Margaret McCurdy led by Head Coach Trisha Koenig and Assistant Coach Mark Andersen. Margaret McCurdy succeeded in reaching the semi-final rounds in Prose, a supplemental event.
For these four competitors the road to nationals was a long one, and they had a new coach along for the ride. “It’s been a very interesting experience,” said Andersen, who fulfilled his first year as a coach this year. “Going from the first tournament… Having my introduction to the NSDA categories was interesting. Then going from tournament to tournament and getting a little bit of a better experience of how things work, mostly on the speech side.”
Students qualified for the tournament in a number of different ways. John McCurdy qualified by placing fourth at the West Iowa District Congressional Debate tournament. This earned him a place in the student congress House of Representatives at nationals…