Community & Alumni Judges

Thank you for your willingness to participate in The Desert Gem as a judge. We hope you are blessed and encouraged by your experience during the tournament.

Qualifications:

The judge must be at least 18 years old and graduated high-school, and in good physical and mental health.

THINGS YOU NEED TO KNOW...

ORIENTATION: After you arrive, there will be a training session to be held approximately 1 hour before your scheduled round. Please allow 30-45 minutes after the round to fill out your ballot and enjoy refreshments prepared especially for you. Due to time constraints, it is not feasible to judge 2 rounds consecutively. However, judging every other round is easily done.

PARKING: Community judge parking will be designated with signs. As a community judge, you have preferential parking locations.

JUDGE CHECK-IN: Located at Ballot Push in the Judges' Lounge.

TIME COMMITMENT: Orientation, judging, and filling out the ballots will take you about 3 hours. To check the schedule click the Schedule tab to the left.

TO REGISTER: Please click on the JUDGE REGISTRATION tab at the top of the page and follow the prompts. A copy of the community judge schedule and terminology can be found here: Community Judge Registration Info and Terminology

INVITATION: If a competitor has invited you, we ask that you indicate that by typing their name in the appropriate box during your judge registration so that students may receive credit for your participation.

PREVIEW: When you arrive at the Judge Orientation 1 hour before the beginning of your round, you will be given a good overview of the event you will be judging. Some of you might like a little bit of prep even before then. Click here to go to the Stoa USA website, where you can read more about the speech and debate league.

You can also view the judge orientation slides ahead of time:

For Lincoln Douglas Debate (LD) ~ Click here
For Team Policy Debate (TP) ~ Click here
For Speech events (I.E.) ~ Click here

We hope this will familiarize you with the league and the events. The Judge Orientation at the tournament will review the ideas in these slides, as well as answer other questions you may have.

Again, thank you for your support and willingness to judge!