1313 College Avenue, Ca�on City, CO 81212

Dear NFL Coach,

Welcome to another competitive forensics season! Our novice season is underway. I hope that your competitive speech year is off to a great start!

1.Sharing the word:
If you know of an award one of our students or coaches wins, please tell me so I can let everyone know. If a special event occurs in your life and you want to share it, please pass that along, too.

At the Oklahoma Nationals:
Colorado Grande was well-represented! Congratulations to Palisade�s Jonathon Brown who made it to semifinals in congress, to Canon City�s Thomas Noah who placed 14th in expository, and to Canon City�s Roger Thoman who placed 13th in Impromptu.

NFL Awards:
Congrats to Pueblo Centennial and Canon City for being named members of the 200 Club. Special congrats go to David Montera for being 11th in the nation for number of new degrees earned last year with 183. A special congrats also goes to Thomas Noah for finishing his career as an All-American with 1536 points which placed him 15th in the nation.

Coach Update:
Nancy Groves took over as head coach at Pueblo East, Theryn Mulberry took a job at Pueblo South teaching AP and won�t be coaching. Jennifer Hill took a job as a counselor at Pueblo South and won�t be coaching either.

2.Reminders from the National Office:
If you have not sent in your dues and your list, please do so immediately! This is very important as our District�s ranking is based on the number of degrees each chapter has on record. Until you return your list and pay your dues, your are at zero! Our goal this year is to finish above 50, and we can do it with your help. Currently, we are 76th because so many of you haven�t sent in membership. is for ALL NFL competitors. Some chapters around the nation are engaging in the shabby practice of sending in membership only for the "promising" competitor who might go to nationals. I don�t believe any of us are doing this. In addition, Mr. Copeland pointed out that MOST affiliates aren�t even registering students. I�m proud to say that is NOT true in our district, and I would like to commend our affiliates for sending in memberships for their students.

3. New Coaches:
We again have new coaches in our NFL District. I hope that you will all introduce yourselves and offer to do whatever is necessary to help our new coaches feel comfortable. I am pleased to announce that Trinidad High School is rejoining NFL and will have an active team this year. Their coach is Elizabeth Bowie. Please send them invitations. As I get other new coaches names and email addresses, I will make those available to you. If you are a mew coach, please email me your name and e-mail address! Thanks!

4. Colorado Grande Committee Election:
Last spring, you elected the following committee to serve you for this school year: Pauline Carochi, Chair, David Montera first committee person, Tony Myers second committee person, Jennifer LaRue first alternate, Maryrose Kohan second alternate. We met as a committee at the Vail Speech Symposium and made the following decisions: set dates for the tournaments, agreed that we did not have to raise fees, and agreed to finalize sites for the NFL meets as soon as we receive official bids.

5. How to get help:
Email me with your help request and I will address your concern. All of the other committee persons will be happy to do the same.

6. Tournament Dates for NFL:
Our NFL Rules Meet will be December 8. We have to move Congress to March 9 and 10 because of CHSAA Districts. Last spring, several of you indicated that you would be willing to host the Nat Quals Tournament. Please complete and return the official bid sheet attached to the snail mail letter I�ve sent no later than October 27th. Then we can let you know the sites for each of the three NFL meets.

7. Team Standings:
In order to maintain an NFL charter, your chapter must earn a minimum of 50 degrees every three years. If you have 2 numbers next to your school, you are up for renewal this year. Add those 2 numbers and that will let you know how many degrees you must earn this year. Those of you who have only 1 number are not up for renewal this year but that number tells you how many degrees your team earned last year. Are you on track? You need to be earning at least 17 per year! If you fail to keep your charter you can still be an affiliate. This gives you all rights of membership except the ability to vote. It�s worth keeping a charter. Please work at it.

8. Interp Tapes:
I have the videos of duo, humor and drama for 1998, 1999, and 2000. We don�t have the 2001 tapes yet. Many of you have not taken advantage of this free opportunity. All you have to do to obtain your copies is get me two copies of the agreement form (I have enclosed one in the snail mail letter) and send me those two copies along with the number of tapes you wish and I will copy them for you. Just an IMPORTANT reminder: the agreement to use the tapes only with NFL kids and never to copy them or share then with others is SERIOUS business. Do not violate those rules or our District will lose the right to obtain the free tapes form Nationals.

9. Tournament Schedule:
Remember, the entire state�s speech schedule is on the Colorado High School Activity Association�s web site (CHSA.org) That site tells you who and how to contact a person to obtain an invitation to those meets, too.

10. Deadlines and Duties for NFL Teams 2001-2002:
I have also attached in the snail mail a packet of your duties and deadlines for the entire year! Forewarned is forearmed! Keep this in a safe place. Let your captain know where it is! Refer to it often. Place the deadlines on your team calendar. Help your committee help you by responding to ALL deadlines!

With warm regards,

Pauline J. Carochi