The Mississippi State Speech & Debate Council

presents

The Ninth Annual

COWBELL CLASSIC

Greetings from the MSU Speech & Debate Council. It is our great pleasure to invite you once again to Starkville for the eighth edition of the Cowbell Classic on January 17^th and 18^th, 2025. As always, the awards will be top notch, the competition will be excellent, and the tournament will run on time.

We are also proud to once again offer bids to the National Individual Events Tournament of Champions (NIETOC). For those of you seeking qualifying legs, come to beautiful Starkvegas and enjoy our hospitality.

The Events

We will follow the standard MHSAA tournament format. Debate preliminary rounds will be held on Friday afternoon and evening, with elimination rounds on Saturday. All individual event rounds will be held on Saturday.

Competitors may enter up to four total events. Either (1) Up to two IE’s in each flight; or (2) One debate event, and up to one IE in Flight A and two in Flight B. This allows us to schedule debate elimination rounds parallel to Flight A.

Debate Events: Congressional Debate, Lincoln-Douglas, Public Forum, Policy Debate

Flight A Individual Events: Prose Interpretation, Dramatic Interpretation, Duet Acting, Informative Speaking, Program Oral Interpretation, Impromptu Speaking

Flight B Individual Events: Extemporaneous Speaking, Humorous Interpretation, Duo Interpretation, Poetry Interpretation, Declamation, Original Oratory

Awards

We will offer our usual suite of top-notch individual awards, including trophies, plaques, and medals in all events. Sweepstakes will include (1) top three overall team sweeps; (2) top three debate sweeps; and (3) the coveted cowbells for top three individual performers.

Registration, Judges, and Entry Fees

Registration will close on Monday, January 13^th at 6 p.m. Entry are $12 per entry in single events and $24 per two person team entry. Drops or adds by registered schools are permitted without penalty until 6 p.m. on Tuesday, January 14^th. Drop fees will apply after this point.

As usual, we will attempt to recruit a strong pool of judges from the MSU community, but it’s impossible to predict availability, so we strongly prefer that schools provide actual judges rather than pay judge fees, if at all possible.

As always, we would be happy to waive entry fees for schools that are in their first or second year of competition, or their first or second year back after an absence of at least five years.

Questions

Please feel free to contact Brett Harvey at brett.harvey@msstate.edu or 662-325-8124 with any questions. We’re looking forward to seeing everyone on January 17-18, 2025 for a weekend of fun and great competition.