PHSSL Pennsylvania State Tournament

This past weekend was the PHSSL (Pennsylvania High School Speech League) State Tournament where every Forensics' team in the state of Pennsylvania competed in. Shanksville was represented by Rebecca Sheriff in Radio Announcing, Bernie Fochtman in Impromptu, and myself in Student Congress. The Shanksville Forensic Team is coached by Mrs. Kasey Connor who has done a lot of work preparing each of the competitors for competition.

The team traveled to Selinsgrove, Pennsylvania on Thursday March 21 with the Rockwood Forensic team, their team was composed of four members and two coaches; the trip took roughly three hours. This was followed by checking into the hotel and getting settled into our rooms with a meal to come afterwards at the Country Cupboards Inn Restaurant, which neighbored the Best Western which we were staying at. The buffet or "Pig Trough," was what I had and it had a multitude of food, from meatballs to baked macaroni and cheese. Then perhaps the strangest activity that I participated in happened after dinner: we went to Walmart. Yes Walmart. We went there for several reasons: for swimming trunks, a Constitution, and snacks. Two of the three items were there, but the one item that we could not find was a Constitution.

Swimming came afterwards and it was a grand time. From going to the sauna, to the swimming pool, to the hot tub; nothing could have relaxed me more than those three places. While we were in the swimming area three local residents came in to the hotel to swim, which is something that I never saw first hand before.

Then the first day of competition at Susquehanna University came with quite an interesting wake up call. The night before I set my phone alarm to wake Bernie, Brandon (from Rockwood), and me up at eight. Well at seven I got a call from my mom which woke me up and stirred Brandon from his sleep. Then ten minutes after Bernie's phone alarm went off; this woke Brandon and I up, and from there it was no going back to sleep with continuous text messages from a multitude of friends wishing us good luck. Brandon and I proceeded to talk about President Obama and our dislike for him, all the while Bernie was still quietly asleep. After about an hour Brandon and I went down to eat the free continental breakfast at the hotel, where Rebecca met us to enjoy the delouse food with good friends.

After a lunch at Applebee's were I 2 for 20 with Brandon it was time for the competition to begin. I went off to debate in Congress on various bills and resolutions; from the flat tax rate to tax fast food restaurants at fifteen percent. This provided for a very interesting debate and there were many different views, ranging from Liberalism to Libertarianism.

The next day of debate came, these two days provided for nearly six hours of debate. Those six hours were some what enjoyable, yet some what torturing. After the long debate the results came back and no one from Shanksville advanced to any further rounds. The weekend at the PHSSL state tournament was enjoyable, and we all hope to go back next year!!