by Sara Gerdy

At 4:30 AM on the morning of May 27, eleven Danville students left from the High school to start their journey to Omaha, Nebraska for the National Catholic Forensics League Nationals. These students qualified for the event back in March and have been preparing for this tournament ever since.

Competition started early Saturday morning and the final round wasn’t until 4:30 Sunday evening. Students competed in a wide range of events from debate to original oratory to duo interpretation. The team members spanned all grade levels and were accompanied by Mr. Michael Nailor, Mrs.Kathi Bates, Miss Joan Krick and Mrs. Elaine Berberich.

The team stayed at the Doubletree Hotel in downtown Omaha.  The team planned on doing some sightseeing in Omaha as well and visited the zoo.

For seniors Megan Carr, Kristy Oren, Nicole and Andy Hunt, in addition to sophomore Anna Schafer and junior Jake Decoteau, this was their second trip to the NCFL national tournament.  Last year’s national tournament was held in Albany, New York.  For the rest of the competitors this was their first time at the prestigious competition. All eleven qualifiers practiced hard in hopes of bringing home a trophy from the tournament.

Carr and Oren competed in a two person event called Public Forum debate. For this month the team debated on whether the constitutional right to freedom of religion has evolved into freedom from religion.

“When we first looked at it we thought, ‘wow this is really bad’ and then we just spent a lot of time researching and talking to Mr.Nailor,” said Carr when asked how the two prepared for this upcoming weekend.

Another event that Danville qualified in was Extemporaneous Speaking, in which students had to speak on a current event.  Jake Decoteau qualified for this event and expected to talk on things such as “the environment because of the BP oil spill, and Greece.” Anna Schafer, who was the only freshmen to qualify last year, returned again to compete in Declamation, an event in which she presented a speech that was given by someone else. Schafer’s speech, given originally by Dana Joya, talked about how “we need to change our culture from less entertainment to more knowledge and academics.”

The biggest surprise overall, was that a group of the Danville team and adviser Michael Nailor got stuck in Detroit, Michigan when their flight home was canceled on Monday due to bad weather.