2024 Barkley Forum: Lee Rolls to a Second National Points Race Victory; Burrus Wins Tiebreaker over Reitman for Second

Last weekend the 69th edition of the Barkley Forum took place on the campus of Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia. 88 extempers from all regions of the country came to compete in a fourth tier National Points Race event.

#9 Katherine Lee of Plano West Senior High School was the highest ranked competitor in the field and she lived up to her ranking, winning the tournament by nine ranks. Lee took four of the five available first place ranks in the final round, defeating Skyler Burrus of American Heritage School – Palm Beach (FL).

The victory was Lee’s second of the season as she was the winner of the International Extemp half of the University of Texas-Longhorn Classic in early December.

#13 Charlotte Reitman of the University School (FL) notched her third top three placing in a National Points Race event in as many final round appearances. Reitman tied Burrus in the final round with a 17 rank composite score but lost a judges preference tiebreaker 3-2.

Southern competitors made up the bottom half of the final round. Noah Darby of St. Thomas More Catholic High School (LA) was fourth, Al Zaidi of Holy Trinity Episcopal Academy (FL) was fifth, and Charlie Hui of Westwood High School (TX) was sixth. Darby finished three ranks ahead of Zaidi and Hui and Zaidi earned a fifth place tiebreak through another 3-2 judges decision.

Plano West maintained its strong record on the national circuit, placing three competitors in the top 12. No other school matched that mark or had more than one competitor reach semi-finals.

Lee will earn 70 points toward the National Points Race for winning, and all of the competitors who reached the semi-final round will be credited with points.  New National Points Race standings will go up tomorrow.

Here are the results of the 2024 Barkley Forum (Click here for tab sheet):

Champion: Katherine Lee (Plano West Senior High School, Texas)
2nd: Skyler Burrus (American Heritage School – Palm Beach, Florida)
3rd: Charlotte Reitman (The University School, Florida)
4th: Noah Darby (St. Thomas More Catholic High School, Louisiana)
5th: Al Zaidi (Holy Trinity Episcopal Academy, Florida)
6th: Charlie Hui (Westwood High School, Texas)

Semi-Finalists

*Zoe Becker (The School Without Walls, Washington, D.C.)
*Evelyn Ding (Plano West Senior High School, Texas)
*Akshita Krishnan (Coppell High School, Texas)
*Kaaviya Shenbaharaman (Plano West Senior High School, Texas)
*Landyn Spellberg (Western High School, Florida)
*Siddharth Sudhakar (Nova High School, Florida)

Quarter-Finalists

*Anthony Babu (Concord-Carlisle High School, Massachusetts)
*Shreyas Chakravarty (The Harker School, California)
*Shriya Dharmapurikar (Durham Academy, North Carolina)
*Jonah Downs (Trinity Preparatory School, Florida)
*Joy Hu (The Harker School, California)
*Kajal Parmar (Cary Academy, North Carolina)
*Kashish Priyam (The Harker School, California)
*Aanya Venkat (Arizona College Prep High School, Arizona)
*Abraham Zhang (Plano West Senior High School, Texas)
*Lindsey Zhao (Clark High School, Texas)
*Felicia Zhongzhang (The Bronx High School of Science, New York)

Extemp Central thanks Emory University for putting the results of the tournament online.

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