On behalf of the NIETOC Executive Board, I would like to offer you a belated ‘Welcome Back’ to the school year! Many of you have already attended tournaments and earned bids, while the rest of you are busy planning and preparing for another competitive season. We hope that you will join the 220+ teams who gathered in Omaha last May for NIETOC 2020!
As an organization, we strive to provide a weekend of high-caliber competition in an atmosphere of caring and camaraderie. We want students to understand the power of their voices to make the world a better place and we want coaches to feel energized and empowered to continue the daunting task of educating tomorrow’s leaders.
This year’s most significant change is the addition of Extemporaneous Speaking to our line-up of main events. We are also allowing host school students, if allowed to compete, to earn bids at those ‘home’ tournaments. Those changes are detailed in this month’s newsletter and will be further explained on our website. We are continuing to develop a schedule that allows for the maximum number of preliminary rounds given the time constraints of the building and weekend. We will release that on our website soon.
We are looking forward to returning to the great state of Texas for the 2020 tournament. Andrew Barrett and his J. Frank Dobie HS team are working diligently to make Houston another wonderful experience for all of our attendees.
We hope to see you in May!
Matt Heimes, President
