{"id":221840,"date":"2016-02-29T06:03:59","date_gmt":"2016-02-28T20:03:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/?p=221840"},"modified":"2016-02-29T06:03:59","modified_gmt":"2016-02-28T20:03:59","slug":"njsda-names-national-team-to-represent-nmi","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/njsda-names-national-team-to-represent-nmi\/","title":{"rendered":"NJSDA names national team to represent NMI"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Members<\/a>
Members of the National Junior Speech and Debate Association team that will represent the CNMI at the national tilt this June pose for a photo with there speech coaches at Mount Carmel School during the award ceremony. (Thomas A. Manglona II)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Eleven students will represent the islands in the National Junior Speech and Debate Association competition after bagging gold medals in the four-day regional competition last week at Mt. Carmel School.<\/p>\n

Over 100 students competed to earn the top spots in 11 categories in last week\u2019s tilt. NJSDA named the members of its national team that will represent the islands in the upcoming national contest this summer in Salt Lake City, Utah.<\/p>\n

Saipan International School\u2019s Shea Hartig will represent the islands in Lincoln-Douglas Debate; Saipan Community School\u2019s Kate Ishida will be competing in the original oratory category; Deirdre Rosete will compete in dramatic interpretation; Garapan Middle School\u2019s Jody Coloma will represent in the humorous interpretation category; and Grace Christian Academy\u2019s Hyunin \u201cHarry\u201d Noh will represent the islands in extemporaneous speaking.<\/p>\n

Esther Park, from Saipan Community School, will compete in the prose category, with GCA\u2019s Esther Kim for storytelling, SCS\u2019 James Park for poetry, Jonathan Wolf, from Dan Dan Middle School, for Declamation, and Kalea Borja, from Mt. Carmel School, for impromptu speaking. Cha Cha Middle School\u2019s Esther Jones and Nina Vladisimo will represent the islands in duo acting. <\/p>\n

Students from 14 junior high schools qualified to compete in the regional competition by competing in meets throughout the year with nearly 200 other students. <\/p>\n

Student contestants who competed in Chamorro and Carolinian categories who will be sent to the mainland will be announced at a later date. <\/p>\n

First-time competitor Shea Hartig said she is very honored and thankful for the opportunity to represent the islands.<\/p>\n

\u201cI joined speech and debate not knowing it would lead to me entering debate and eventually winning it,\u201d she said. \u201c I am very excited and thrilled. I am going to work as hard as I possibly can and get the help I need and fight my hardest.\u201d<\/p>\n

Fellow orator Esther Jones said that she joined to follow in her sister\u2019s footsteps and represent the islands nationally. <\/p>\n

\u201cI am really excited about this. My sister went last year and I wanted to try it out this year. It was so much fun,\u201d she told Saipan Tribune.<\/p>\n

One of the youngest competitors, 6th grader Jonathan Wolf, is a veteran Primary Grades Forensic Conference contestant and explained that speech and debate \u201chelps me with my schooling.\u201d He added, \u201cIt makes me more confident to speak in front of people. I was really praying to win. It was so cool when I won.\u201d<\/p>\n

NJSDA registrar and board member Mary Angela Wheat noted that this year\u2019s competition was \u201cthe smoothest ever\u201d due to the collaboration among the students, coaches, and their schools.<\/p>\n

Cha Cha Middle School coach Joylynn Jones recognized that the speech and debate association as a whole is progressing to become even more competitive.<\/p>\n

She added, \u201cThe students are being a lot more competitive in the ranks of all the kids who go to nationals.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jones noted that her students practiced four times a week for the competition.<\/p>\n

CNMI Speech and Debate Association board chair Harold Easton lauded the student orators for their fear of not speaking in public.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe always send good students,\u201d he said.\u201d The skill level has increased. Our kids work very hard and the coaches do a great job and the community support is excellent.\u201d<\/p>\n

PGFC for elementary students and National Speech and Debate Association competition for high school students are expected to take place in late March and early April. Gold medalists of the high school tilt will join the NJSDA team in Utah.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Eleven students will represent the islands in the National Junior Speech and Debate Association competition…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":221841,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[26,7792,1111,2854],"class_list":["post-221840","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local-news","tag-cnmi","tag-jonathan-wolf","tag-mount-carmel-school","tag-njsda"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/221840","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=221840"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/221840\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/221841"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=221840"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=221840"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=221840"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}