KELSEY GRAHAM | staff writer
ANDREA WALTERS | staff writer
Speech and Debate’s Night of Forensics was held on Wednesday March 11th, in the Wilden Lecture Hall. The night started strong with a prose interpretation by James Stevenson, a senior on the team.
Senior Tyler Endres dove into catchy rhythms and impressed the crowd with his poetry interpretation, followed by an entertaining duo titled “be aggressive” given by two female team members. Endres brought the first half of the presentation to a close and kept the audience laughing with his program oral interpretation on killer plants.
The team at APU involves not only speech and debate but also performance literature. They compete in speaking events at local and national tournaments. There is a competition about every other weekend and the school pays for the traveling.
Tyler Endres, one of the crowd favorites of the evening, has been doing these speeches for two years here at APU as well as two former years in high school. He loves the exileration of competing.
“When you compete, seeing your name on the top of a sheet, it’s exhilarating,” Endres said.
Katie Pengra, Arizona State University graduate and first year-coach at APU, shares some of the benefits of being a part of the team such as scholarships, resumé, public advocacy and great opportunities to meet new people.
Many of the students that came to the event were only there for extra credit. However, they were surprised at how much they actually enjoyed themselves.
“I came for extra credit, but I would totally come out to support them again,” said senior interpersonal communications major Savana Buttacavoli.
Students seemed to especially enjoy the performance literature part of the night.
“I really like the prose and poetry interpretations they were entertaining,” said senior, communications studies major, Rachel Parker.
After intermission, there was the parliamentary debate whcih consisted of two person teams. The Government team was Sarah Breslin and Ryan Loofbourrow who debated that “Robin Hood had it right by taking from the rich and giving to the poor”. The opposition team was Leanne Ronk and Ryan Compose.
APU’s team has been very successful taking first place in 2005 at the Christian college nationals; they also took third place in 2007 at the international forensics association tournament in Argentina.
To find out more about the APU Speech and Debate team students can stop by Rose Garden Room No. 14 and ask for Amy Jung, the Director of Forensics.
