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Florida CampOctober 7-11 |
Training Minds Ministy has some of the best coaches in the country. These include authors of the bestselling curriculum in the league as well as some national champions from years past. These coaches will also be featured at our Colorado Conference, but Florida will get to spend more time in training for competition.
Cody Herche
Extemp, Debate, Author of Keys to Extemp and Gold Book
Cody Herche is the author of Keys to Extemp (Monument, 2008) and edits Gold Book: The current events sourcebook. As a high school forensics competitor, he won the national Team Debate title in 2006, extemp speaking championship in 2005, top Lincoln-Douglas speaker award in 2005 and the California Team Debate championship in 2004. Herche set a tournament record that still stands at the 2004 Worlds Parliamentary for individual speaker points with 296 out of a possible 300. As a coach, Herche has taught at camps and conferences around the country and instructed numerous state and national qualifiers, finalists and champions, including the 2007 Team Policy champions and 2009 extemp champion and runner-up.
Inducted into Phi Beta Kappa as a junior and a member of Phi Kappa Phi, Herche graduated Summa Cum Laude from the University of the Pacific with his Bachelor's degree in political economics and French studies. He earned the Jan Good Award (2009) for outstanding original French essay, was a Student Affairs officer and was a columnist for the student newspaper. Herche has been accepted to Cornell Law School in New York where he plans to start in the Fall. In his spare time, Herche enjoys playing basketball and reading non-fiction.
Kaitlin Nelson
Program Manager of Lincoln-Douglas Debate
Kaitlin participated in NCFCA for five years. She debated in Lincoln-Douglas for three years and is currently exploring Team-Policy in her senior year. Additionally, she has competed in nine out of the ten speech events. She took 7th place at the 2009 national tournament in Lincoln-Douglas debate and 2nd in extemporaneous speaking. In 2010, Kaitlin enjoyed winning three consecutive tournaments in Team-Policy and qualifying to nationals at the Massachusetts Open, where she took 2nd in Apologetics and 1st in Thematic Interpretation.
Back home in Colorado, Kaitlin is a speech peer coach at her local club and has helped teach Lincoln-Douglas debate. She hopes to continue both debating and coaching through college. Kaitlin plans on majoring in marketing or public relations, where she can continue to learn about the psychology of rhetoric and persuasion.
Rob Parks
Team-Policy Debate, Florida Camp Coach
Coach Parks captained his High School NFL debate team from 1978-1981. A graduate of Bowdoin College and Franklin Pierce Law Center, Captain Parks served as an Air Force JAG officer for 5 years before starting his own private practice in North Carolina specializing in arguing criminal cases before appellate courts. During that time he appealed a half dozen cases to the US Supreme Court and regularly argued cases in front of the highest courts in our land: including the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, US Court of Claims, US Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces and the US 4th Circuit Court of Appeals. He also spent time as an adjunct professor teaching Torts, Criminal Law and Consumer Law at Wesley College and Trial Advocacy at Widener University School of Law.
After a decade of unsuccessfully trying to fix broken adults through the criminal justice system, Rob changed his career focus to building better youth-- spending the last 9 years working for the Boy Scouts of America. He also volunteers as the Scoutmaster for his son’s troop, with Kiwanis, community mediation, the American Legion’s Oratorical and Boy’s State programs and judges NCFCA debate in the local area. Rob lives with his wife and son in Pomfret, MD.
Vance Trefethen
Research Camp, Team-Policy Debate, Author of Blue Book Cases
Coach Vance debated in National Forensic League debate while in high school from 1979-1982. In college, he judged at high school NFL tournaments in North Carolina. After college, he moved around the country for various jobs, including some time with the Defense Department in the Washington, D.C., area and several years at the headquarters of Wal-Mart in Arkansas.
After moving back to North Carolina, he once again got involved in debate by volunteering as an assistant coach for public school NFL debaters. A homeschooling dad himself, he realized the growing potential and benefit of homeschool debate and switched over to coaching homeschoolers a couple years later. In 2001, he helped Chris Jeub with bringing The Blue Book to a more advanced level. He has been co-authoring this, editing Blue Booko Advanced, and writing its Blue Book Midseason ever since.
Currently working in New Hampshire as a computer programmer for a French engineering software company, Vance also volunteers as an instructor with the annual American Legion Boys State program. He and his wife, Bridget, have two daughters, Charlotte and Rebecca.
Matthew Baker
Research Camp, Florida Team-Policy Camp, Author of Blue Book Advanced
A three-time contributor to Blue Book Advanced, Matt competed in NCFCA’s Region 8 for 3 years. During that time, he qualified for nationals in team debate 3 times and won 2nd place team at the National Tournament in both the 2003-2004 and the 2004-2005 seasons. Among other awards, he won the 2004 Georgia State Championship, the 2005 North Carolina Open Pre-qualified Tournament, and was a finalist in extemp at the 2005 National Tournament. He also served as assistant coach of Equitas Debate Club in his senior year. In college, Matt led the Bob Jones University squad to three final round finishes at the NEDA (National Educational Debate Association) National Tournament culminating in the 2007-2008 national championship. In addition, he won first place speaker at the 2008 NEDA national tournament and was named All-American. Demonstrating flexibility across the broad-spectrum of intercollegiate debate, he has won multiple awards in the NPDA (National Parliamentary Debate Association) including 1st place team (open division) in his parliamentary debate debut. He holds a total of 65 debate titles.
Matt’s research skills have received recognition outside of the realm of forensics. His senior thesis was the 2008 receipt of the Leila R. Custard Award for historical research. In addition, He has won awards or published papers with the Fraser Institute, the Lincoln Forum, the Atlas Economic Research Institute, and the Association of Private Enterprise Education on subjects ranging from Islamic political-economy to the Mexican War. Currently a senior at Bob Jones University, Matt plans to graduate with a double-major in accounting and history in May 2009. He serves as Treasurer of the SC College Republican Party and is co-captain of BJU’s award-winning mock trial team.
Shane Baumgardner
Lincoln-Douglas & Extemp Apprentice Coach
Shane Baumgardner competed for 4 years in the NCFCA and won numerous awards. He is the 2009 National Champion in impromptu and extemporaneous speaking. He also placed 6th in LD at the 2009 championships and has won the Region III title in both Lincoln-Douglas and Team-Policy debate.
Shane will be finishing high school and persuing credits toward a bachelor of arts degree in political science this fall. He hopes to continue on to graduate or law school from there. When not doing school or speech and debate he enjoys playing sports of any kind, but particularly ultimate frisbee, football and basketball. He is also highly involved in Juvenile Justice programs in Colorado Springs and has prosecuted numerous cases under the Teen Court program.
Maggie Carabelos
Team-Policy Debate, Club Coaching, Events Coordinator
With a background of forensics in her own high school career, Maggie brings particular empathy to her coaching. She has coached SALT off and on for eight years.
She is the Events Coordinator for Training Minds Ministries, and has extensive experience as a tournament administrator. When she is not busy training amazing speakers, she plans and caters weddings and special events, and produces community theater.
Champion Coaches Ready to Train You
