Penn for Youth Debate invites you to attend the 2010 Liberty Bell Classic, the 35th annual LBC and the first LBC to be held in the month of February!  This year, we have moved the tournament to a new weekend, February 13-14th.  We are aiming to offer an uniquely on-time, affordable, and quality competition on this weekend.  We have early commitments to attend from schools from throughout the Northeast, as well as Virginia, the Carolinas, and Florida.  The LBC is a great opportunity to visit our beautiful city, and to find out what our university has to offer students. Finally, all proceeds from the tournament go to promote urban high school debate programs in Philadelphia, thus staying within the high school forensics community.

The LBC offers the following categories of competition: Lincoln-Douglas Debate (both Varsity and Novice), Policy Debate, Public Forum Debate, Student Congress, Oratory, Oral Interpretation, Dramatic Performance, Extemp, Duo Interp, and Declamation. There will be four prelim rounds in individual Speech events, three prelim sessions in Congress, five prelims in Policy, and we will again be offering six prelim rounds in both divisions of Lincoln-Douglas, and Public Forum.

Tab will be directed for the fourth year by Chris Palmer of Newton South High School in Massachusetts.  He will be joined again by Jonathan Chavez, also of Newton South, who will be directing IE Events, and for the first time by Jim Menick of Hendrick Hudson High School and Sheryl Kaczmarek of Newburgh Free Academy in New York, who direct the debate events, as well as other tabulation staff to be determined.  Our tab directors run most of the other invitationals in the Northeast, and as key members of the high school community, they are particularly experienced in how to manage a predictable, familiar and high quality tournament.

We’ll also be continuing our popular Cheesesteak lunch, and will continue to expand the tournament into more buildings on campus.  We are also exploring providing some optional educational workshops or lectures for students and coaches during the tournament; updates will be posted on our website.

The latest updates will also be posted here on our website. If you have any questions, please email us at penn@tabroom.com.

Best,
Alex Anderson, Katie Poulos, Ali Huberlie, Mike Contillo and Amy Wei