American Forensic Association National Speech Tournament

Big News! AFA-NST 2026 will be hosted by .speechdebate in Portland, Oregon! We're so grateful for our fantastic hosts and we cannot wait to see you all in Oregon!

Thank you endlessly to the long list of people (some pictured, many not) who worked to make the such a success. Thank you to our wonderful hosts , tournament director Nathaniel Wilson, Assistant Tournament Director who would not stop hustling long enough for a photo, Dr. Mallory Marsh, and AFA-NST Chair Joseph Gantt.

Congratulations to Eric White, alumni of the University of Florida. Eric is the recipient of the Distinguished Alumni Award.

Congratulations to Dr. Kelsey Abele, West Texas A&M and Alejandro Mata, West Texas A&M who received the Dr. Bruce Manchester NST Research Grant.

Congratulations to Dr. Amy C. Martinelli, University of Florida! Dr. Martinelli is the recipient of the Distinguished Service Award. Thank you for all your incredible service for this community!

Congratulations to the finalists!

The AFA-NST wants to give a MASSIVE thank you to our wonderful hosts at UNC Charlotte. Our first thank you is to our host and former AFA-NST Chair Nance Riffe. Nance has done so much fantastic work to welcome the community and it has been incredibly memorable! Our second thank you is to UNC GTA Sabrina Reed. Sabrina is the unsung hero of hosting! Please thank her for all of the hard work when you see her! (Or her aborable kitten!). Our final thank you is to the UNC Charlotte student volunteers. They have worked so hard to help this tournament run and we cannot thank them enough!!!

That’s a wrap from your postings committee! Huge thank you to postings chair Ben Pyle and all the work he and his committee put into postings construction, transporting postings (in the rain), and the very fun “postings drops”!

Congratulations to all the performers at the

Congratulations to the FLIGHT A FINALISTS

Congratulations to the FLIGHT C FINALISTS!!!

Congratulations to the FINALISTS in Extemporaneous Speaking at the

Rodrigo Trujillo

Sam Rooker

Kayli Pham

Freya Hutton

Anya Khanna

Gursimrat Dahry

📸: Photo Credit: the phenomenal Craig Brown

Congratulations to the FLIGHT B FINALISTS!!!