The Road to Nationals

We won State in April. Nationals wasn't until late October.

Mr. Biddle, for the most part, gave us the summer off. Summer is an extra busy time for FFA with County, District, and State Fairs, and various other events. When we were on trips he would pick our brain to keep us fresh, but mostly he didn't want us to get burnt out on Parli.

Come August, when school started, we brushed off our Parli Bibles (Robert's Rules of Order) and hit the ground running.

Practices were a little trickier in the fall. The boys all had football right after school and the girls all had early morning band before school. Luckily, band didn't meet on Monday mornings, so we saved that day for Parli practice. We usually met after the boys were done with football and at least once on weekends. Some of them also had jobs, a few lived on farms, and I had cheerleading. Our juggling act was quite impressive. There was no rest for the weary!

Come early October, nerves were settling in. Gone were the days of the boys not taking Parli seriously! They had gotten a taste of winning and wanted to continue Mr. Biddle's legacy.

We hit a bump in the road 2.5 weeks away from Nationals. Our chairman got into a tiff with Mr. Biddle one morning before school. He decided he was done. By the end of the school day, our team had already made necessary transitions. I would take over Lauren's role as Secretary (that was an added role at Nationals not used at State), Lauren would move to Chairman, and Chris (our alternate) would fill my role as the opposer.

(Side note: Mr. Biddle had given me the motion Object to the Consideration of the Question way back in January. Unless it was given to someone else on the card, I made it every time. He knew I was typically a positive person, so he wanted to challenge me.)

We already had a scheduled practice that night. So we met a little early, expecting Avery might show up. We planned to stick to our guns. If he was going to let some petty quarrel cause him to walk out, we didn't need that on our team. Sure enough, in walked Avery. Sure enough, by the end we exhausted all of our emotions. Sure enough, our team went back to the way it was, because we'd learned a thing or two about debating and none of us could argue with Avery's reasons for wanting forgiveness.

He knew he had gotten caught up in the heat of the moment that morning. Biddle had become like a father to all of us, and what teenage boy doesn't argue with their dad. Throughout the day, he thought back to his freshman year. He had the opportunity to go with the Chapter to National Convention. That happened to be the year mine and Lauren's siblings were competing at Nationals. He remembered getting to watch their Final Four demonstration and thought, "I want to be them someday." As he told us this, it was like a shot to the heart, especially mine and Lauren's. Like us, he wanted to continue the legacy our siblings had started with Mr. Biddle. That was the kind of Chairman we wanted on our team. So we welcomed him back. (Poor Chris! Although he was relieved he didn't have to study as hard as we did.)

The following weekend we were having a well known National judge (from Missouri!) come observe us. (We referred to him as squatty, bald guy. Actually Biddle gave him that moniker, and we ran with it. Biddle has a great sense of humor!) He and Biddle knew each other well, and Biddle knew he'd shoot it to us straight.

Oh boy did squatty, bald guy hit us where it hurt! He informed us we needed about 30 more demonstrations before Nationals, and he didn't know how that would be possible. We did a second demonstration for him that night, so one down, 29 to go.

While squatty, bald man was blunt, he probably wasn't wrong. Little did he know of the debacle that had occurred earlier that week though. We were still ironing out our personal issues. However, we did take what he said to heart, and you better believe we set out to prove him wrong. We started tallying our demonstrations the next 2 weeks. I don't remember our final count, but I do know we got at least 30 more demonstrations before we hit stage at Nationals!

Brandon curled up with our 

ghetto blaster on the 

floor of the bus.

Nationals week finally arrived.

Monday we loaded up our short bus and headed to Indy. (Perks of a short bus, it has air conditioning and it was new. Disadvantage, it had no radio. We still get a kick out of Biddle's packing list for us. Amongst the essentials: FFA official dress, extra hosiery for girls, ties and ascots, and a ghetto blaster for the bus. Ghetto blaster?! We informed Biddle this was the 21st century; then continued calling it a ghetto blaster.)

MISSOURI!

Tuesday we adjusted to Indianapolis, made a Walmart run, had a picnic, and practiced. Then practiced some more.

Wednesday we had picture day, our written test, then more practicing.

Thursday would be Prelims.

Friday would be Semi-finals and Finals, back-to-back. Our goal was finals. Both teams Biddle had ever taken to Nationals had made the Final Four. We didn't want to be a disappointment. So the Final Four is where we set our sights.